Should we build more large dams? This has been the subject of articles, one multi-stakeholder world commission, government inquiries and protest movements. Nevertheless, unresolved disagreements have persisted for 50 years within the literature on this topic. More recently, the call for...

This paper analyses the performative, consumptive and productive uses and meanings of water in and of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), a large dam with reservoir on the Narmada river, located at the border of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh States, India. The main focus of the paper is how water is...

This report provides an overview of the legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks of dam safety in Japan. The key objective is to share good practices and lessons learned from Japan with practitioners and governments working on establishing or enhancing a dam safety assurance system for...

In Brazil, hydropower generates more than 60% of the national electricity supply, placing the country among the most hydropower-dependent economies worldwide. This study analyses the causal impact of dam construction on forest loss in Brazil using a new municipality-level panel dataset covering...

In recent months, relations between Ethiopia, Egypt, and Somalia have deteriorated significantly. Previously separate disputes have become intertwined: namely the conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia over the use of Nile waters and the disagreement between Ethiopia and Somalia regarding the...

Traditional interventions for mitigating flood risk and increasing water security continue to focus mainly on large-scale engineering solutions despite a growing body of evidence showing that large-scale water infrastructure investments can incur large cost overruns and produce significant,...

Phytoplankton are sensitive to changes in river ecosystems. However, the spatial impacts of dams on phytoplankton communities have not been well documented, and the relationships between environmental drivers and phytoplankton communities in different types of river reaches need to be further...

In recent decades, India's environment has been severely compromised by riverine pollution combined with large-scale dams and exacerbated by diversion for irrigation. Most prominent among the rivers so affected has been the Ganges and its tributaries in northern India, which for Hindus include...

We estimate the effect of large dams on malaria incidence in India between 1975 and 1995. We combine instrumental variables approach with a panel model with unobserved common factors allowing us to fully capture the endogeneity of dam location and unobserved time-varying heterogeneity. Dams...

Dam failures that cause significant adverse downstream impacts continue to occur globally. Hence, effective, adequately resourced dam safety regulation is critical for the safety of dams and downstream communities. This paper explores options for regulatory funding and resourcing according to a...

1. The Environmental Movement Begins: Maine’s Rivers -- 2. Big Concrete, the Tennessee River and the New Deal -- 3. Environmental Justice in the Olympics and on the Ottaway -- 4. The Glen Canyon Mistake -- 5. After the Gold Rush: Klamath River Justice -- 6. Columbia River and Salmon Passage --...

India’s premier development cooperation scheme in Africa, the Indian Development and Economic Assistance Cooperation Scheme-Lines of Credit (IDEAS-LoCs), has launched the country as a dam builder on the continent. This paper examines the first decade of the Lines of Credit (LoC) between 2004...

The Klamath River, draining some 12,000 square miles in southern Oregon and northern California, was once the third largest salmon stream on the West Coast, the life force of Native Americans. The river runs 263 miles from headwaters in Oregon and flows through the Cascades to the Pacific Ocean...

The Nile as a transboundary river attracts worldwide attention. 85% of the river originates in Ethiopia. However, Ethiopia has historically been excluded from using this resource for development purposes. Since 2011, Ethiopia has been building a dam on the Blue Nile. However, downstream...

In the 21st century Ghana has seen the revival and construction of dam projects which had previously been stalled for decades as a result of financing constraints and socio-environmental concerns. What has enabled Ghana’s contemporary dam-building revival? What are the risks and benefits? This...

As a nation with highly variable and limited availability of water resources, Zimbabwe relies on a vast and aging water infrastructure stock that requires prompt rehabilitation to better support the water, food, and energy sectors. The country has limited water resources, with much of its area...

The construction of large dams is one of the most costly and controversial forms of public infrastructure investment in developing countries, but little is known about their impact. This paper studies the productivity and distributional effects of large dams in India. To account for endogenous...

The law and policy of salmon protection and restoration are complex, and matters surrounding salmon implicate topics as varied as Indian treaty fishing rights, dam management and removal, international treaties, predator con­trol, and climate change. Pacific Salmon Law and the Environment...

This learning note is the second of a 4-note-series developed by the Water Global Practice (GP) Climate Change Team to highlight successful examples of water operations that support climate change-related activities andprovide useful lessons and recommendations for project design

The growing impact of climate change on the design and operations of dams and the inherent complexity of dam projects (often multi-purpose) require the capacity to adopt increasingly strict global standards and to mainstream resilience and low-carbon considerations in water infrastructure in...

Large-scale flooding is becoming increasingly common due to prolonged and intensive rainfall caused by climate change. Communities have mitigated this risk by building flood protection, though it is unclear whether residents are aware of these public works or the protection they confer. We...

We present the results of a contingent valuation study aimed at estimating the monetary value of environmental and cultural/heritage injuries caused by the Fundão (tailings) Dam failure in Brazil in 2015. While the valuation literature considering mining-related externalities is considerable,...

Multi-reservoir system operation is a challenging and complex task, because of the curse of uncertainties, nonlinearities, dimensionalities and conflicts among the various contradictory objectives. Contemporaneous optimization of such competing objectives needs improving the capability of...

This study examines the impact of two hydropower dam reservoirs, Amerti and Neshe, on the adjacent rural household food insecurity in the Abay Chome district, northwestern Ethiopia. A cross-sectional method was employed to collect data from 485 households (268 affected and 217 non-affected...

In this era of ever-changing international relations , the balance of geo-politics is crucial , especially when it comes to the relations between neighboring countries which get or are strained as a result of chronic or intermittent conflicts persisting between the two states. As a result of...

We use satellite, hydrology, and census data from 1990 to 2014 to examine the distributional impacts of dams on cropland productivity and economic development in China. We exploit a county’s river gradient and elevation to deal with the endogeneity of dam location. We find that an additional...

The paper assesses social impacts of a mega-dam project (Merowe Dam in Sudan) as perceived by host and affected communities (i.e., upstream, downstream, and relocated residents), which is not commonly seen in the literature. Primary survey and interviews were conducted with 300 residents,...

Small dams play an important role in the provision of many kinds of benefits, such as drinking and irrigation water supply, flood control, small/mini hydropower generation, fishing, and so on. They are particularly important in rural and agricultural areas. Agriculture remains an engine of rural...

This paper assesses the economic benefits of 57 World Bank Group-sponsored hydropower dam plant investments. Hydropower dams are among the main sources for producing electricity and the largest renewable source for power generation throughout the world. Hydropower dams are often a lower-cost...