We need to vigorously defend our remaining rivers from over-damming and strengthen the laws and standards that protect them
In the Himalayas and on the Mekong, on the great rivers of China and the Amazon, in the highlands of Laos and Ethiopia, the world is experiencing an unprecedented dam building boom. Traditional funders such as the World Bank and new financiers from China, India and Brazil are all vying to get a piece of the action.
Climate change makes reducing our carbon footprint imperative. Yet as dams move from the floodplains into remote mountain areas, they are creating ever more serious risks to fragile ecosystems, vulnerable (often indigenous) communities, geologically unstable valley slopes and large downstream populations. The flood disaster in Uttarakhand reminds us of the risks of developing vulnerable river valleys beyond their carrying capacity under a changing climate.
Search for appropriate standards
What standards are appropriate to address the risks of the current generation of large dams?
In a new paper for the International Institute for Environment and Development, Jamie Skinner and Larry Haas warn that new dam builders no longer feel bound by international social and environmental standards, and propagate the voluntary scorecard of the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) instead. HSAP may be a useful internal checklist for dam building companies. Yet its application is controlled by the dam industry, and the protocol is not an appropriate tool for setting public policy.
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