The world has invested heavily in big dams, sacrificing rivers, land, forests, fisheries and communities in exchange for power and water supply. There are today more than 50,000 dams in operation and most of the world’s rivers are dammed. The World Commission on Dams found that humans have constructed on average one large dam per day from 1900 to 2000. The Three Gorges Dam in China is the world’s largest hydropower project and most notorious dam. The massive project sets records for number of people displaced (more than 1.2 million), number of cities and towns flooded (13 cities, 140 towns, 1,350 villages), and length of reservoir (more than 600 kilometres).
The world’s dam building spree has dried up large and small rivers around the globe. “World’s Top Rivers at Risk”, a 2007 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report, alerts us that “rivers on every continent are drying out, threatening severe water shortages”. The WWF finds that climate change, pollution and dams have ruined rivers worldwide. “Dams along the Danube River – one of the longest flowing rivers in Europe – have already destroyed 80 per cent of the river basin’s wetlands and floodplains,” according to the WWF. “The permanent inundation of forests, wetlands and wildlife is perhaps the most obvious ecological effect of a dam,” adds Patrick McCully, Director of International Rivers. Largely because of dams, freshwater species are now the most endangered on the planet.
Although the rate of dam building has dropped to less than half of its peak in the early 1970s, hundreds of projects are under construction and many more are proposed. Dams continue to be promoted and funded in Southern countries by institutions like the China Exim Bank and the World Bank. China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, Chile and Laos are all building or planning dams, which would have severe impacts on rivers and people.
Big Dams Have Left a Legacy of Loss
In 2000, the World Commission on Dams published “Dams and Development”, its groundbreaking report on the impacts of dams. The report concludes that “dams have made an important and significant contribution to human development, and the benefits derived from them have been considerable. In too many cases an unacceptable and often unnecessary price has been paid to secure those benefits, especially in social and environmental terms, by people displaced, by communities downstream, by taxpayers and by the natural environment.”
The impact of big dams on communities is enormous and rarely accounted for. An estimated 40-80 million people have been displaced by big dams worldwide. Most have been left impoverished. A woman who was displaced by the reservoir of the Xiaoxi Dam in China reported in November 2008: “At first, when we heard we would move, and have a new house built, I was not upset. We were poor before. But now I feel it is not better. It is worse.” Her neighbours tell similar stories: they have been provided with new houses, but no new land to farm on or any alternative employment. A former farmer, also displaced by the Xiaoxi Dam, said: “I have nothing to do but play cards. Plan for the future? I have no plan.”
The 1,250 megawatts (MW) Merowe Dam in Sudan is currently the largest hydropower dam being built in Africa. Up to 70,000 people will be flooded out of their homes by its reservoir. Many of them have opposed resettlement from the fertile floodplains of the Nile River to barren lands in the desert, and have been abused by the authorities for speaking out on this issue.
The World Commission on Dams finds that resettled people all over the world often face circumstances similar to those resettled by the Xiaoxi Dam in China or the Merowe Dam in Sudan. “Involuntary, traumatic and delayed relocation, as well as the denial of development opportunities for years and often decades, has characterized the resettlement process.”
Compensation – if provided at all – is typically inadequate. Cash compensation is rarely enough to purchase comparable replacement land. When land-for-land compensation is provided, those displaced typically receive smaller amounts of poorer quality land. Unable to subsist on their new plots, farming families frequently end up living as migrant labourers or slum dwellers.
Sadly, people displaced by reservoirs are in most instances not the only ones to suffer. Communities downstream of dams and reservoirs often pay a similarly large price, as dams dry up rivers and decimate fisheries and other natural resources. “Downstream communities throughout the tropics and subtropics face some of the most drastic impacts of large dams, particularly where the changed hydrological regime of rivers has adversely affected floodplains that supported local livelihoods through flood-recession agriculture, fishing, herding and gathering floodplain forest products” concludes the World Commission on Dams. Changes in river flow have affected the lives of millions living downstream from dams.
Big Dams Are the Wrong Choice for a Warming World
The balance sheet shows most large dams have not only left a legacy of loss, but have also been extremely poor investments, as they often fail to deliver the water and energy promised. The World Commission on Dams found that large dam projects cost on average 50% more than estimated, and that many irrigation dams have irrigated a much smaller area than projected.
It is feared that with global warming, the poor performance of dams will worsen. Climate change is already taking its toll on some of the largest rivers of Asia, including the Indus and Ganges that supply water to millions in South Asia. The Himalayan glaciers - the main source for many of those rivers - are melting. When the glaciers have melted, the rivers will disappear. Some dams might break because of bigger floods, while others might stop producing power or a reliable water supply.
The design of most dams in the Himalayan region is based on historical data of river flows, with the assumption that the pattern of flows will remain the same in the future. Climate change has effectively destroyed this assumption. It is likely that dams will be subjected to much higher flows in coming decades, raising concerns of dam safety, increased flooding and submergence, or much lower flows, affecting the performance of such huge investments.
Shripad Dharmadhikary, author of “Mountains of Concrete: Dam Building in the Himalayas”, says: "Against these dramatic changes, the governments of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan are planning to transform the Himalayan rivers into the powerhouse of South Asia. They want to build hundreds of mega-dams to generate electricity from the wild waters of the Himalayas."
With over 150,000 megawatts (MW) of additional hydropower capacity proposed in the next 20 years in the four countries, the Himalayan region could have the highest concentration of dams in the world.
The dams’ reservoirs and transmission lines will destroy thousands of houses, towns, villages, fields, spiritual sites and even parts of the highest highway of the world, the Karakoram highway. But who will reap their benefits? Will they be able to generate as much electricity as promised? What will happen to the people, ecosystems and rivers of the Himalayas if the dams are built and climate change takes its toll?
Hydropower dams in the Himalayas are being advanced as a solution to the growing energy and electricity needs of the region. Yet, Dharmadhikary says: “There is little evidence to establish that big dams are the only, the best or the optimal solution to the electricity question. In particular, while these projects will undoubtedly generate many thousands of units of electricity, it does not follow automatically that they will help improve access to power for the poor and the vulnerable sections of society. Indeed, the way the hydropower programs are structured, the high cost of these projects, their long distances from the load centres and privatisation of many of them are all likely to result in high costs of electricity and hence most of the benefits will accrue to sections of society with a high paying capacity.”
Dams Are No Cheap Option
The planned 4,500 MW Diamer-Bhasha Dam on the Indus in Pakistan is, at US$12.6 billion, one of the largest and most costly planned dams in the world. Yet it will not increase access to electricity in rural Pakistan, where some 40,000 houses have no access. Most of these houses are not even connected to the grid – they would benefit from a connection to the electricity grid, or from the installation of decentralized energy options, but not from the construction of this large hydropower project. The extremely high costs of the project have so far kept it on the drawing board. The World Bank in November 2008 stated its unwillingness to finance the construction of the dam, and so far, no other international founders have agreed to close the gap.
The planned Ilisu Dam in Turkey has also received a severe blow from funding institutions recently, as the Export Credit Agencies of Switzerland, Germany and Austria, who are guaranteeing the investments of Swiss, German and Austrian companies in the project, have suspended their contracts and threatened to withdraw their support completely in the coming months. Since then, construction has been suspended and the workers have been sent home. The Ilisu Project on the Tigris River is the largest currently planned dam project in Turkey and, if built, would displace thousands in Southeast Turkey.
People Resist Destructive Dams and Propose Alternatives
Besides the funding gap that currently hinders some of the most contentious planned large dams from going ahead, local opposition is another major factor stopping projects from moving forward. Around the world, people are rising up against big dams. They are fighting to protect their rivers and their livelihoods from new dams. They are demanding compensation for problems caused by old dams. They are proposing better alternatives for energy, water supply and flood management. All of them are fighting for a voice in decisions that affect their lives.
Over the past 20 years, the international movement has grown strong and has had many successes. Some dams have been stopped. Better alternatives, such as small dams and water conservation, have been implemented.
In May 2008, hundreds of tribal people from the far reaches of the Amazon Basin in Brazil came together to protest plans for huge dams on the Xingu River, the largest tributary of the Amazon. In all, more than 800 indigenous people from 26 ethnic groups and representatives of social movements from throughout the basin gathered in Altamira for what was the largest indigenous gathering in the Amazon in nearly 20 years. International Rivers’ campaigner Glenn Switkes, who attended the protest against the planned dams, said: “The Kayapó Indians made it clear they will oppose all plans to dam the Xingu.”
In June 2008, the government of Sikkim, India, announced the scrapping of four projects in response to the struggle of affected people. These people have organized themselves as the “Affected Citizens of Teesta” and have vowed “go on indefinite hunger strike until the hydropower projects are stopped and others reviewed.”
People living in Sulgaon village in the submergence area of the 400 MW Maheshwar project on the Narmada River in India have opposed the construction of the dam, and proposed alternatives to it. They have worked with experts to carry out surveys of energy consumption and energy generation options in their village. Based on the findings of these surveys, they have demonstrated that they can meet their energy needs by reducing their electricity consumption through better demand management and by generating electricity from local energy sources such as biomass. Now, they can even export some of the electricity they generate in their village.
Paul Polak of International Development Enterprises estimates that one could bring 100 million small farming families out of extreme poverty using low-cost, low-risk water technologies, such as drip irrigation and treadle pumps. This would cost $20 billion – the same amount spent on dams in one year.
There Are Better Ways to Meet Water and Energy Needs
The fact that dams have destroyed so many rivers, impoverished so many people and cost so much money, leaves us with the need to look for better alternatives to large dams.
In 2000, the World Commission on Dams presented a new framework for decision-making on water and energy projects, based on recognizing the rights and assessing the risks of all interested parties. The World Commission on Dams says that development needs and objectives should be clearly formulated through an open and participatory process, before a dam or any other water or energy project is built. It also says that all stakeholders should participate in decision-making processes related to large dams. Public acceptance of all key decisions should be demonstrated. Decisions affecting indigenous peoples should be taken with their free, prior and informed consent. The WCD also demands that affected people should negotiate mutually agreed and legally enforceable agreements to ensure the implementation of mitigation, resettlement and development entitlements.
The way forward in trying to meet the world’s water and energy needs lies in the inclusion of the rights and risks of all interested and affected parties. As Shripad Dharmadhikary concludes: “The choices are not easy, and the process will be difficult. The decisions lie with the people in the respective countries. Yet, just as these countries claim the right to make their own decisions, they will have to grant the same right to local people, those who will be most affected, to have a meaningful say in these decision-making processes.”
Ann-Kathrin Schneider is responsible for South Asia & Policy at International Rivers.