MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.

Explore the 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam, the second deadliest disaster in California history. A colossal engineering and human failure, the dam was built by William Mulholland, a self-taught engineer who ensured the growth of Los Angeles by bringing the city water via aqueduct. The catastrophe killed more than 400 people and destroyed millions of dollars of property.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Explores the plans for the construction of the monumental dam on China's Yangtze River, the structure that when completed in 2009 will become the Three Gorges Dam. It is slated to be 610 feet high, 1.3 miles across, creating a reservoir 400 miles and the largest power plant in the world.

During the darkest days of the Depression when construction was started on Grand Coulee Dam, everything about it was described in superlatives. It would be the "Biggest Thing on Earth," the salvation of the common man, a dam and irrigation project that would make the desert bloom, a source of cheap power that would boost an entire region of the country. Of the many public works projects of the New Deal, Grand Coulee Dam loomed largest in America's imagination, promising to fulfill President Franklin Roosevelt's vision for a "planned promised land" where hard-working farm families would finally be free from the drought and dislocation caused by the elements.

Documentary on water usage, money, politics, the transformation of nature, and the growth of the American west, shown on PBS as a four-part miniseries.

In the 70s, a dam and a hydroelectric plant were built in Sobradinho. The government at the time, which was commanded by the military regime, thought that that small town, in the northeast hinterland, would be ideal for the construction, because there would be no resistance from the locals. So, 73.000 people were displaced - it is one of the biggest forced migrations in the history of Brazil. Four cities and dozens of villages submerged. Mrs. Pequenita was the only inhabitant to ever return; there, she lives in a ghost town. She receives the visit of three social agents, who own old videos and photos of the region.

"Was it the President who ordered the rivers to be six meters deep?" In 2008, under President Lee Myung-bak's administration, South Korea's Four Major Rivers Restoration Project turned the country's beautiful rivers into scenes of devastation. What were once pristine first-grade waters became lifeless rivers, choked with toxic green algae emitting foul odors. Crops irrigated with this contaminated water are now served on the table of Korean people. The government disguised a grand canal project as river restoration, and the media turned a blind eye — together enabling one of the greatest environmental destructions in Korean history. The consequences of this deception will be borne by future generations. To ensure that future generations can once again run freely along the rivers, we must act—now. We must make Korea's rivers flow again.

Considers marvels of modern science: contact lenses, kitchen gadgets, bubble bath (with cheesecake), diatoms, Boulder Dam.

Historic construction footage, photos, and newsreels help illustrate Grand Coulee Dam's construction, engineering challenges, and regional impact including power and irrigation. Produced by the Bureau of Reclamation and shown at the dam's Visitor Center.