BEIJING — A scientific study has found that the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydropower project, has not contributed to climate change, according to a report by Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency.

The study, published by the Social Sciences Academic Press under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, focused on climate change and found that the dam’s environmental impact was limited to a 12-mile radius, the Xinhua article said.

“No direct link has been found between the dam and local severe droughts and floods in recent years, according to the report, which instead laid the blame on extreme weather conditions caused by abnormal atmospheric circulation and air temperature mainly incurred by changes in ocean temperature and snow conditions at the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau,” according to the article, which was published Friday.

The results of the study were the first to be released publicly since controversy over the dam has grown this year. Critics of the dam and some Chinese news organizations raised questions in the spring about whether the dam had worsened the effects of a drought that hit the Yangtze River region of central and southern China. The Three Gorges Dam stands in the middle of the Yangtze River.