The year 2002 is the second year of the three-year battle to tackle the most difficult tasks in the Three Gorges Engineering Project as well as a critical period for water storage in the second stage of the Project. With the concerted efforts of all parties participating in the project, major annual control targets were achieved on the whole and image targets of different stages were realized on or ahead of schedule.

In 2002, seven major engineering projects were completed in the Three Gorges Project: ① the 185 m passage on the left part on top of the dam was completed at the end of April and linked up in mid May; ② the dam was open for water inflow in the upper reaches on May 1 for the second stage project and dismantlement of 410 m of the mouth gate was completed on October 25; ③ test on the permanent lock without water began on July and ended on August 15; test with water began on September 1 ahead of schedule and the navigation course in the lower reaches was filled with water on September 19; ④ concrete pouring of the left bank dam (except the section of temporary lock) all reached the designed height of 185 m on October 26; ⑤ river damming by the navigation open dyke succeeded on November 6 ahead of schedule and water from the dam bottom was pumped to the height of 45 m; ⑥ concrete pouring of the RCC cofferdam began on December 12 ahead of schedule and reached the height of 70 m at the high dyke section and 53 m at the low dyke section by the end of the year; ⑦ installment of No.2 and No. 5 generator sets were essentially completed by the end of December.

In 2002, major engineering work completed in the Three Gorges Project was: 1.5491 million m³ of concrete pouring; 54,132 tons of metal structure and electronic machine buried and installed; 5,440 tons of generator sets buried and 15,350 tons of generator sets installed; 51,532 m of fixing grouting; 50,832 m of curtain grouting; 76,871 m² of joint grouting; digging of 12.7106 million m³ of earth and stones; filling and construction of 6.7637 million m³ of earth and stones; 14,117 m³ of bitumen concrete wall and 21,359 m² of concrete leakage prevention wall.