Archive for the 'dams' Category

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Damming the Poor: It’s Time to Create River Parks for People

Published on 04/23/2012 in agriculture, aquatic ecosystems, dams, floods, greenwashing, hydropower, peak water, policy, privatization, rivers and water rights. 0 Comments

Photo retrieved from: www.nationalgeographic.com

“In their free-flowing form, large rivers like the Tana are among the most productive, life-giving ecosystems on the planet. These natural supermarkets continue to feed hundreds of millions of very poor people each and every day.

Many fish species wait for floods to swim out onto a river’s floodplain, where they spawn prolifically. When a fish spawns on a floodplain, its offspring will have many advantages over other fish born in the river itself. The water spilling onto a floodplain during floods is enriched with nutrients, helping young fish to grow. The drowned vegetation of the floodplain harbors a bounty of insects to feed upon, and provides places where newborn fish can hide from bigger fish and other predators. Rivers with large numbers of floodplain-spawning fish produce far more fish for people to eat than those without floods and floodplains.”

Landslide Risk at Reservoir Cited in China

Published on 04/19/2012 in dam removal, dams, displacement of people, erosion and floods. 0 Comments Tags: china, hydroelectric power, landslide, three gorges dam.

“A growing threat of landslides on ground surrounding the massive Three Gorges Dam reservoir could force the government to relocate 100,000 more residents of the area, from which 46,000 were moved earlier, an expert with China’s land and resources ministry said this week.

“The dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric project, has been a target of criticism by environmentalists and some geologists since before the reservoir began to inundate a long stretch of the Yangtze River, long regarded as one of the world’s scenic wonders, in 2003. A massive landslide occurred that year, followed by others, but only in 2007 did the government admit that the rising waters were causing instability and that a catastrophe could occur unless preventive steps were taken.

“Officials have recorded 430 landslides and nearly 2,900 smaller geological incidents along the lakeshore, and 5,386 other potentially dangerous sites are being monitored, Mr. Liu said.

“The government relocated 1.4 million people to build the dam and reservoir, which is comparatively narrow but longer than Lake Superior in North America. The latest proposed relocation would affect residents along hundreds of miles of twisting lakeshore from Jiangjin, in the Chongqing municipality, to the dam’s location at Yichang, in Hubei Province.”

Direct drinking water recycling could prevent floods

Published on 04/18/2012 in dams, management and rainwater harvesting. 0 Comments Tags: Australia, peakwater, rainwater harvesting, reclaimed water, Water, water recycleing.

Retrieved from: Rainwater Harvesting

“Direct potable reuse (DPR) of wastewater could free up billions of litres of water from reservoirs around Australia, giving cities a greater buffer to capture rainwater and control major flooding events, says Dr Stuart Khan, an environmental engineer at the UNSW Water Research Centre.

“Current plans for water recycling in Australia generally involve Indirect Potable Reuse (IPR), where reclaimed water is treated to a high standard and then returned to rivers, lakes and aquifers, where it mixes with environmental waters before being re-extracted for further treatment.

“But Dr Khan says a better approach, which is more cost effective and less energy intensive, is to skip the dam altogether. With DPR, highly treated wastewater is introduced directly to drinking water treatment plants, without re-entering the natural environment along the way.

“In Queensland alone, DPR would be the equivalent of immediately constructing a new 425-billion litre reservoir, without the cost of construction or having to relocate a single home or farm, says Khan.

“This added ‘virtual’ storage space represents a 30% increase on the volume currently reserved for flood mitigation in this region, his research shows.

“DPR probably would have saved Brisbane from the 2011 floods from Wivenhoe,” he says. “The big inflow peak of around 1900 GL that occurred between 9 and 13 January could have been contained in the dam, rather than spilled.”

Water Wars: Why India and Pakistan Are Squaring Off Over Their Rivers

Published on 04/16/2012 in agriculture, dams, drought, hydropower, peak water, policy and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: dams, india, pakistan, peakwater, Water, water wars.

Photo retrieved from: TIME world

“India’s Wular Lake, a popular picnic and tourist spot nestled in the Kashmir Valley, is an unlikely site for conflict. But India’s plan to build a structure on the Jhelum River at the mouth of the lake that will allow it to release water during the river’s lean winter months has outraged neighboring Pakistan, which believes the project will give India the power to control how much water flows downstream to its farmers. After two and a half decades of deadlock and 15 marathon rounds of bilateral talks — the most recent occurring in late March — the countries appear a long way from finding common ground.

The dispute isn’t the first of its kind, nor will it be the last. The waters of the Indus River and tributaries like the Jhelum — and the dams built on them by India — have long been one of the main points of contention between the rival neighbors, along with the disputed region of Kashmir itself and cross-border terrorism. Pakistan, whose agriculture-dominated economy is heavily reliant on the Indus and its tributaries, fears upstream dams allow India to manipulate the flows of water as it sees fit. Many in Pakistan accuse New Delhi of wantonly exacerbating the country’s dire water shortages, choking its agricultural production and ruining livelihoods.

“Indeed, India has ramped up its hydroelectricity projects in recent years to try to boost its woefully inadequate power supplies. The government has a total of 45 projects either already completed or in the proposal stage on the western rivers, some as large as 1000 megawatt and many as small as 2 and 3 megawatt. This expansion has irked Islamabad. “India is putting more and more restrictions and constrictions on Pakistan’s waters,” Kamal Majidulla, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani’s special assistant on water resources and agriculture, tells TIME.

A 2011 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report said that studies show no single dam will affect Pakistan’s access to water, but the cumulative effect of multiple hydroelectric projects could give India the ability to store enough water to limit Pakistan’s supply at crucial moments in the growing season. India has never abused its water supplies in this way, the report adds, and New Delhi rejects the theory as an unsubstantiated hypothesis. But the report’s observations serve as a suitable analogy for India and Pakistan’s water conflicts overall. While no single legal or diplomatic tussle will rupture the fragile relations between the countries, the cumulative effect of a series of standoffs could cause tensions to boil over.”

Panama: Village of the damned

Published on 04/13/2012 in dams, greenwashing, hydrology, policy, privatization, rivers, species extinction, water diversions, water rights and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: ngabe people.

“Panama’s largest indigenous group, the Ngabe, had decided to take a stand against the unlawful encroachment of their homeland. Since the time of the conquistadors, the Ngabe have been pushed to the margins of the country – forced to live on the land that no one else wanted. Twenty years ago the Panamanian government finally ceded what was considered a useless tract of land to them. The Ngabe had in fact lived there for centuries, so by rights it has always been theirs.

But now this land, rich in mineral deposits and rivers, is considered priceless. And Ricardo Martinelli, Panama’s authoritarian president who is a close friend of former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, wants it back.

His plan is to open the Ngabe heartland to foreign mining companies and push hydroelectric power projects onto an unwilling population. The problem is that the Ngabe have nowhere else to go. So the scene was set for a dramatic showdown, which started when the Ngabe closed the Pan-American Highway in Chiriquí province in the west of the country – bringing Panama to a standstill.”

Egypt is losing its grip on the Nile

Published on 04/10/2012 in agriculture, dams, hydrology, hydropower, peak water, policy, rivers, tap water, water diversions and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: grand ethiopian renaissance dam, nile river, UN.

Photo retrieved from: www.bikyamasr.com

“If ratified by other basin states, the agreement would strip Egypt of its majority share of the river’s water.

The most serious threat, however, comes from Ethiopia, already Egypt’s regional rival. In May 2011, Ethiopia announced plans to build a massive, $4.8 billion hydropower dam — known as the Grand Renaissance Dam — along the stretch of river within its own borders, despite Egypt’s opposition to the project.

“Most of us here are eager to use the Nile. But every farmer expects Egypt to be the enemy,” said Manichey Abey, a 33-year-old Ethiopian farmer.

While hydropower dams — used to generate electricity — in theory eventually allow the dammed water to flow through, Egyptian officials remain wary of Ethiopia’s intentions. They demanded in October of last year the creation of a tripartite committee, now at work, to study the new dam’s effects and are worried the project could set an unwelcome precedent for more ambitious schemes in the future.

At 6,000 megawatts, the dam would be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa, with a reservoir capable of holding roughly 65 billion cubic meters of water.”

Companies, households use Malang dam as garbage dump

Published on 04/06/2012 in contaminated water, dams, hydropower, management and rivers. 0 Comments Tags: households use Malang dam as garbage dump, industrial waste, malang damCompanies.

Photo retrieved from: www.planemole.org

“Negligence and a lack of supervision has led Sengguruh dam in the East Java town of Malang to be used as a waste disposal site for household garbage and industrial waste, state water firm Perum Jasa Tirta says.

“Besides the industrial waste from the hundreds of companies, there has been a huge volume of household waste — about 20 to 30 cubic meters a day during the dry season, and up to 80 cubic meters a day during the rainy season,” Jasa Tirta spokesman Tri Hardjono said in Malang on Monday as quoted by Antara.

Tri added that the waste not only contaminated the water in the dam, but also made it shallower, obliging local authorities to dredge the dam every year as the local power plant relies on it for water.”

Pakistan and India to go to War over Water?

Published on 04/05/2012 in dams, hydrology, hydropower, peak water, policy and water wars. 0 Comments Tags: india pakistan water wars, indus river.

Photo retrieved from: www.pacificvoyagers.org

“But now a rising new element of discord threatens to precipitate a new armed clash between southern Asia’s two nuclear powers – water.

Lahore’s “The Nation’ newspaper on Sunday published an editorial entitled, “War with India inevitable: Nizami,” the newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief and Nazaria-i-Pakistan Trust At issue are Pakistan’s concerns over India’s ongoing construction of two hydroelectric dams on the upper reaches of the Indus River. Islamabad is concerned that the 45 megawatt, 190-foot tall Nimoo-Bazgo concrete dam 44 megawatt Chutak hydroelectric power project will reduce the Indus River’s flow towards Pakistan, as they are capable of storing up to 4.23 billion cubic feet of water, violating the terms of the bilateral 1960 Indus Water Treaty. The Indus, which begins in Indian-controlled Kashmir, is crucial to both India and Pakistan, but is currently experiencing water flows down 30 percent from its normal levels. The Indus is Pakistan’s primary freshwater source, on which 90 percent of its agriculture depends. According to a number of Pakistani agriculture and water experts, the nation is heading towards a massive water shortage in the next couple of years due to insufficient water management practices and storage capacity, which will be exacerbated by the twin Indian hydroelectric projects, as they will further diminish the Indus’ flow.

So, if push comes to shove, who’s got Pakistan’s back?

China.”

Feverish Chinese Dam Building Could Trigger Tsunami

Published on 04/05/2012 in dams. 0 Comments Tags: Earthquakes.

Photo retrieved from: www.scientificanamerican.com

“More than 130 large dams that China is building in its western region, an area of high seismicity, are vulnerable to earthquakes or could induce earthquakes, according to a new report released by the Canadian-based environmental group Probe International. In a worst-case scenario, dams could collapse creating a tsunami that would wipe out everything in its path, including downstream dams, and cause untold loss of life and property.

To pierce the Chinese government’s secrecy over its dam-building, the Probe report overlays a Chinese map of dam locations with US Geological Survey earthquake data and a United Nations’ seismic hazard map. Probe also used Google Earth satellite images to confirm the state of completion of about one-half of the dams.

According to the report, 98.6% of the dams being constructed in western China are located in moderate to very high seismic hazard zones. The Zipingpu Dam, for example, which is now thought to have triggered the magnitude 7.9 Sichuan earthquake in 2008 that killed an estimated 80,000 people, was built in a moderate seismic zone. The force of that quake cracked the dam and shook it so severely that it sank one metre and moved 60 centimetres downstream.”

Concerns over India rivers order

Published on 04/02/2012 in agriculture, dams, hydrology, policy, rivers, water diversions and water shortage. 0 Comments Tags: Brahmaputra river, india's rivers, Yarlung-Tsampo.

Photo retrieved from: www.bbc.co.uk

“A supreme court order in India asking the government to link more than 30 rivers and divert waters to parched areas has sparked concerns in neighbouring countries.

Bangladesh says it would be hardest hit because it is a downstream country to two major rivers that flow from India.

New Delhi is yet to respond to the neighbouring countries’ reactions.

The multi-billion-dollar project was announced by the Indian government in 2002 but had since remained on paper.

Experts in Nepal say the country’s unstable political situation could open the door for India to build dams and reservoirs in Nepalese territory for the inter-linking project – known as the ILR.”