A lot of silt (sediment) that is carried by the river has been trapped in the reservoir. Eventually, if the dam is not removed, the reservoir will fill with silt, making it useless. Also, because the river's silt doesn't go downstream anymore, the city of Shanghai will suffer because there has been no silt to replace land that is washed away at the river's mouth. In a high-silt content river like the Yangtze, sediment can clog the dam's outlets, and it cannot release water. The water would back up behind the dam and have nowhere to go, and would eventually go over the dam, making it collapse.