At least another 300,000 people living near the Three Gorges Dam will have to be relocated to protect the environment and escape geographic hazards. This is in addition to the 1.138 million people already relocated for the world's largest hydropower project, a local migration official said yesterday.

As part of the nation's strategy to provide cheap energy and prevent flood and draught, the project began in 1992 and began water reserving and hydro-electricity harnessing in 2008. Officials have "basically" finished the first phase of resettling about 1.3 million people in Chongqing and Hubei province, a local government work report said.

"A total 54.18-billion yuan investment has been designated to facilitate the migration project that helped 1.138 million displaced Chongqing people settle down," Chongqing acting mayor Huang Qifan said at an ongoing annual conference of the city's People's Congress.

However, the deputy director of the migration bureau of the heavy-weighted Wanzhou district of Chongqing, which used to be home for one-fifth of the total migration population, told China Daily yesterday that at least another 300,000 people would have to move out of the reservoir area.

"An eco-screen, or buffer belt, is waiting for approval to be built alongside the reservoir to improve the water quality of the Yangtze River streams and reduce the contamination from residents living nearby," said Hu Jiahai, who was also a deputy of the local people's congress.

"Additionally, more people will have to move out of the area to avoid geographic hazards, like landslides, caused by the dam that tames water levels rising or falling between 145 m to 175 m every year to produce electricity."

He said the actual number depends on the assessment of the geology of the dam area.

According to Hu, ecology protection and hazards prevention are just two major tasks of a proposed follow-up dam project, which also has to address legacy problems from the early migration period, the need for job training of the migrants, and economic development of the area to create new jobs.

The Three Gorges Project Construction Committee Executive Office under the State Council had designated the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission to draft a general plan for the next 10 years.