[nebopolis]

Dams have the side effect of making huge swaths of land uninhabitable automatically as soon as they start filling.

From the Three Gorges Dam

> China relocated 1.24 million residents (ending with Gaoyang in Hubei Province) as 13 cities, 140 towns and 1350 villages either flooded or were partially flooded by the reservoir

[dredmorbius]

Planned and managed operational characteristics are not sudden-onset, unanticipated, and highly-disruptive catastrophes. They're fully-anticipated side-effects.

Your comment really doesn't speak to the nature of the phenomenon.

[maria2]

Dams do not make land uninhabitable. Dams use land for a productive purpose. Do railroads make land uninhabitable? I would say that land with railroad tracks should still be considered habitable, even though you'd die should you choose to live on the railroad tracks. The land itself is still habitable, you'd just need to remove the dam to live there. Just as you might need to remove the railroad tracks.