YICHANG - China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower project, has started releasing more water downstream on the Yangtze River during the dry winter season.

The move aims to ensure water supplies and river traffic safety on the middle and lower reaches of the country's largest river, the China Three Gorges Project Corporation, the developer and operator of the Three Gorges Dam, said in a statement on Friday.

The Three Gorges Reservoir on Friday received 5,000 cubic meters of water upstream per second and discharged 6,000 cubic meters downstream per second, it said.

The reservoir is expected to release 22.2 billion cubic meters of water into the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River during the dry winter and spring seasons, according to the statement.

Flood control and drought authorities can increase the discharge if the middle and lower reaches are hit by drought, it said.

The reservoir stored water in September and October last year, and the water level reached the designed maximum capacity of 175 meters by the end of October.

The Three Gorges project is a multi-functional water control system, consisting of a 2,309-meter-long, 185-meter-high dam, a five-tier ship lock, and 26 hydropower turbo-generators.

Construction of the $22.5-billion Three Gorges project in the mid-section of the Yangtze River began in 1993 and finished in 2009. It started generating electricity in 2003.