The Four Rivers "Restoration" Project

Our journey began in Korea. Hundreds of years ago, Seoul, the capital of modern South Korea, was a newly founded village along the banks of a picturesque creek called Chonggyecheon (37°35'N). As the city grew, the creek became a sewer and finally was covered over by concrete and a freeway. Several years ago, Mayor Lee Myung-bak decided to bring the creek back to the daylight. Now, a seminatural river parkway serves the urban residents of the city. We walked there from our lodge, a traditional inn with bamboo walls, sliding doorways, and an Ethernet-connected computer in every room; modern Seoul is one of the world's most wired nations.

Walkways line both banks of the flowing creek, which is punctuated by cascades and stepping-stone bridges. Chonggyecheon impressed us as an urban park, though water from the Han River must be pumped in at considerable energy costs to enhance the flow. The park is used day and night and clearly appreciated by local residents, from children splashing in the creek to romantic couples strolling hand in hand and elderly dog walkers. The mayor moved on to become the nation's president, and his new campaign, to redesign South Korea's four largest rivers—the Han, Nakdong, Geum, and Yeongsan—was a much more controversial objective.

In 2009, gigantic excavators began carving riverside bluffs away to double the width of the channels while digging them 12 to 18 feet deeper. The $20 billion national project encompassed the construction of sixteen new dams on the main channels of the four rivers, plus five more on their tributaries, the enlargement of eighty-seven existing small dams, and the addition of concrete lining along 200 miles of riverbank. President Lee called the effort part of a "Green New Deal" intended to store water against the prospect of drought, prevent flooding, improve water quality, restore river ecosystems, promote river-related recreation, and (perhaps above all) to stimulate the economy by creating 190,000 construction jobs and spending a sum equal to almost 20 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.

The goals of the Four Rivers Restoration Project sounded commendable, but when viewed closely, the list of benefits seemed exaggerated. We learned the details from and toured part of the construction site with the "Korean Federation for Environmental Movement" (KFEM). Their national headquarters is a comfortable old residence converted to offices, with commuter bicycles lining the walls. There we met with Choony Kim, the organization's chief of international affairs.

As Choony explained, South Korea, though densely populated, has plenty of water. Episodes of flooding occur primarily on upper tributaries rather than in the main river channels, where the work was focused. And the engineering approach will likely degrade, rather than improve, water quality, because slower water movement increases accumulations of algae and pollutants. Most important, the removal of natural wetlands and streamside vegetation clearly does not achieve "river ecosystem restoration," but rather destroys habitat. Natural beauty and wetlands critical to migratory birds and other wildlife were being replaced with bike paths, spraying fountains, and many miles of city-style parks.

When we pointed out that dams and channelization are old ideas about how to manage rivers, Choony said, "Many experts agree." She had worked for KFEM since 1995, after studying at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in the United States. She spoke excellent English and was eager to talk to international visitors about the project, to counter publicity the government was providing to media outside Korea. Choony showed us dramatic before-and-after photographs taken at construction sites. As rivers are widened, villages and farms must be relocated. Her frustration showed as she explained that some of the displaced rice farmers, following years of encouragement by the government and environmental groups, had transitioned to organic farming, controlling insect pests in the paddies with ducks instead of pesticides and using weed-eating snails in place of herbicides. Shutting down those farms near the river meant 15 years of effort wasted.

An unexpected impact of losing so much farmland was a national "kimchi crisis" in the autumn after our visit, as a shortage of cabbage was blamed on lost farm production due to the Four Rivers Project. Kimchi, the spicy national dish, was served at every meal we ate in Korea. The cabbage shortage became a political issue, debated by the national legislature.

"The government calls this 'green economy,' but has no concern about the ecology," Choony said. "They just keep construction workers busy, busy, busy." The project is being pushed along aggressively because South Korea's presidents are limited to one five-year term and so President Lee "wants everything done in his time," Choony said.

The river widening and excavations do face opposition within the country. Polls find that the majority of the public opposes the work, both for its $20 billion cost and for its ecological impact. In a national election just before we visited, the president's ruling party had lost about half of its controlling majority in the legislature to opponents from other parties. Despite that change, the...