1、Perhaps it is humankind\'s long suffering at the mercy of flood and drought that makes the ideal of forcing the waters to do our bidding so fascinating.
本句应当为强调句 ，humankind\'s long suffering at the mercy of flood and drought是主语。
翻译： 可能是人类长期遭受到洪水和干旱的痛苦，使得想要强迫洪水按照我们的意愿走的想法是如此的迷人
2、It doesn\'t help that building a big, powerful dam had become a symbol of achievement for nations and people striving to assert themselves.
It 代表了 building a big, powerful dam
翻译： 建造一个巨大的，强大的大坝 已经成为一个象征来表彰国家和人民的巨大成就是没有用的
3、The Aswan Dam, for example, stopped the Nile flooding but deprived Egypt of the fertile silt that floods left — all in return for a giant reservoir of disease which is now so full of silt that it barely generates electricity.
中间有插入语
翻译，例如，阿斯旺大坝阻止了尼罗河的洪水但是也剥夺了洪水带给埃及富饶的盐分，最终成为一个巨大的，有缺陷的水库，现在它有如此多的盐分，以致于它几乎不能发电
4、This week, in the heart of civilized Europe, Slovaks and Hungarians stopped just short of sending in the troops in their contention over a dam on the Danube.
翻译：这一周，在文明的欧洲中部，斯洛伐克和匈牙利停止了关于多瑙河上一座大坝的争议仅仅是缺少派遣部队
