General Manager of China Three Gorges Corporation Li Yong'an said Saturday the company has slowed down the pace to raise the water level in the gigantic reservoir to help relieve drought in the downstream areas.

The Three Gorges reservoir's water level was expected to reach its peak at 175 meters for the first time in early November according to the current progress, Li said.

The water level at the reservoir had been scheduled to peak at the end of October and the original plan was postponed due to the severe drought that struck the vast areas in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, China's longest waterway.

The water level rose to 170.39 meters at 3 p.m. Saturday from the 145.87-meter mark when the operation began on Sept. 15, according to the control center of the China Three Gorges Corporation.

"Every aspect (of the project) is normal since we began the water-raising plan," Li told an appraisal meeting on the artificial propagation of the Chinese sturgeon, a rare species living in the Yangtze River.

To help relieve the thirst of the Yangtze's middle and lower reaches, Li said, the Three Gorges project has increased its discharge of water to about 8,000 meters per second despite the shrinking inflow from upstream.

"Our progress of the water storage has been affected and the water level at the Three Gorges reservoir's is expected to peak at 175 meters in early November," he said.

"The Three Gorges project can reach its full capacity as originally designed if we succeed in raising the water level to 175 meters this year," he added.

According to a joint statement by China's State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters and Yangtze River Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters in September, the State Council, or China's Cabinet, approved the corporation's plan to lift the Three Gorges reservoir's water level to 175 meters by the end of October at a maximum of three meters a day.

But water level rose about 1 centimeter per hour on average after surpassing the 170 meter mark due to the increasing demand for water from thirsty downstream amid low inflow from the upper reaches.

The State Council has demanded the Three Gorges project to conduct the water-raising process in a "safe, scientific, sound and gradual" manner and properly handle relations between anti-flood, power-generation, shipping and water supply.

The Three Gorges corporation had promised to carry forward the process in a controlled manner to prevent adverse results from sudden rises and falls in the water level, like protective embankment collapses and cave-ins.

Initiated in 1993, the Three Gorges Project is a multi-functional water control system built on the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Its main components include a 2,309-meter long dam, a five-tier ship lock system, and 26 hydropower turbo-generators. Its key functions are flood control, power generation, shipping and water supplies.

An extra 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity could be generated annually if the water level was raised from 156 meters to 175 meters.

The navigable course in the Three Gorges reservoir could be expanded by 150 km so that a fleet of 10,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT) could sail all the way from Yichang, the nearest city to the Three Gorges dam, directly upstream to Chongqing, the most important industrial city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze.

Some environment experts voiced concerns on possible massive geological disasters incurred by the water-raising moves, but the Three Gorges corporation said the occurrence of such events had been brought "under control".

About 12 billion yuan about (1.8 billion U.S. dollars) has been spent on harnessing or removing hidden dangers which might later cause major geological disasters when the reservoir's water level rose, according to the corporation.

An inspection panel led by Chen Lei, Minister of Water Resources, issued a license in August approving the project to raise water level to 175 meters, which will signal the completion of the project.

The project has cost 184.9 billion yuan (27.19 billion U.S. dollars), including 69.3 billion Juan spent on resettling 1.27 million residents.

China's ministries of environmental protection, land and resources, and other organizations were closely monitoring various aspects of the dam's performance such as the quality of water in the reservoir, silting and the possibility of related natural geological disasters.