The Failure of the World Bank’s Sardar Sarovar Dam project in India
Lira Samanta
The World Bank is known to fund many infrastructure projects in developing countries, presumably as a means to achieve their goals of increasing development in those countries. Hydroelectric dams are some of the much-maligned infrastructure projects funded by the World Bank. In a report authored by employees of the World Bank itself, the authors themselves highlight the “adverse environmental and related social impacts” of large dams, while attempting to draw a distinction between “relatively good dams and bad dams”. (Ledec & Quintero, 2003)
One example of a hydroelectric dam funded by the World Bank is the Sardar Sarovar Dam in India. The World Bank funded Sardar Sarovar in 1985, approving $450 million in loans for the development of this dam. (Bosshard, 2008)
This development was envisioned as part of the Narmada Valley Development Project, also known as the “Narmada Project”, the scope of which included the provisioning of thirty large dams, 135 medium dams, and 3000 small dams. Of these, the Sardar Sarovar is one of the larger and most publicly troubling projects. The Indian government’s many claims about this dam have included that it would irrigate roughly 1.8 million hectares of land in the state of Gujarat, irrigate 73,000 hectares of land in the nearby state Rajasthan, and provide drinkable water to roughly 8000 Gujarati villages and 125 urban centers. (Narula, 2008)
Despite these
First, the use of hydro energy resource, which is still debatable if it’s renewable or nonrenewable, cannot always be suitable for flat or dry regions and in areas where natural disasters occur. So counties with natural disasters or regions that are not suited is most likely not going to have a hydropower, as mentioned in (Marmulla, 2001, p. 55), dams are unnatural effecting species like fish causing migrations because of habitat loss. This can lead to extinction of species, affecting many ecosystems, since the fish starts to migrate to different areas changing the population balance. For example, Nicola, Elvira,
The Three Gorges Dam is an unfinished project which will be the largest dam ever constructed on the planet Earth. It is situated in China on the third largest river in the world – the Yangtze. The dam has been debated over since the 1919 and is still a hot topic of debate because of its many pros and cons. In 1994 construction began on the dam, and it is expected to be finished by the year 2009. The massive dimensions of the dam are mind boggling and its functions – if the dam actually works – are truly remarkable; however, with such a large structure also comes difficulties, sacrifices, and cynics. The goal of this essay is to lend an understanding of the dam itself, the prospective benefits of
Dam projects can serve many purposes. They compensate for varying amounts of water that nature may send down a river at a given time, or they may serve as a resource to generate hydropower for the local population. The construction of these complicated feats of engineering is an expensive, time consuming task. For whatever reason a dam is built, it will almost always pay for itself in the energy it produces or
The Peace River currently has two other Site dams, and the Site C will work in correlation to them. The Site C will filter the already parsley clean water, creating clean water for more than 100 years. The dam generates 1,100 megawatts of capacity, producing 5,100 hours per year. This is enough to power 450,000 homes a year in British Columbia. This has been the most cost efficient recourse BC Hydro has ever proposed. Not only will this Dam create energy and save money, but it will also provide thousands of
Hydroelectric dams as energy sources have many advantages; they provide a renewable energy source, it can take the place of fossil fuel usages, and while being built dams can significantly help jobs in the development industry (Perlman). However, these dams are extremely costly, not just economically but environmentally and socially as well. These costs can be demonstrated by looking at the consequences of other dams. Three Gorges in China: release of methane gases, deforestation, water pollution, ecosystem disruption. Glen Canyon Dam: sedimentation, endangerment and extinction of species endemic to the area, poor water quality, crippling of ecosystems downstream—and these are just the environmental impacts! All of these
The thirst for water has lead individuals and organizations to build dams across rivers at an alarming rate. During the early 1900s dams were being built so fast it was no longer big news when a dam was completed. These structures provided controlled irrigation water and hydroelectric power to the communities not only close to the reservoirs and dams, but also provided irrigation water and hydroelectric power to communities many miles away from the river. Negatively blocking the flow of the river has impacted fish ecosystems, increased evaporation of water, and flooded intricately important landscapes. These negative impacts, it can be argued, affect the humans living downstream or within the flood plain of the dam site. Dams
The Hoover Dam is legendary. Having visited and stood on it’s bridge many times, there is no way to describe the incredible power that one feels just setting foot near the place. In 1922, the Reclamation Service presented a report calling for the development of a dam on the Colorado River for flood control and electric power generation. Even before Congress approved the Boulder Canyon Project, the Bureau of Reclamation was considering what kind of dam should be used. Officials eventually decided on a massive concrete arch-gravity dam, the design of which was overseen by the Bureau's chief design engineer John L. Savage. Construction of Hoover Dam began in 1931, and the last concrete was poured in 1935, two years ahead of schedule. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the dam on September 30, 1935. The power plant structures were completed in 1936, and the first generator began commercial operation in October of that year. The vital statistics describing Hoover Dam and its benefits are quite impressive on paper, but having visited the location and lived in areas of the country who benefit from the dam, the overwhelming size and impact of the project is made real. The dam is thick at the bottom and thin near the top, and would present a convex face towards the water above the dam. The curving arch of the dam would transmit the water's force into the
This money is being used to build a second dam, after the successful $68 million dam that split the sea into two and already filling the northern sea up. Although this has seen fishermen’s business improve along with returning rain, the problem on the Uzbekistan border is yet to be solved with the southern sea still shrinking. The economy of Uzbekistan is struggling to fix this problem as their economy heavily depends of cash crops which are not being produced due to the lack of water and irrigation of cotton fields. An additional problem for Uzbekistan is that their headwaters are controlled by other countries. This problem is exacerbated by the part of the world they’re in and any change could easily trigger conflict from neighbouring countries. To conclude, although large water management schemes due in some cases increase water security for the intended target destination, there are many other factors which need to be considered deeply to evaluate whether the economic costs as well as the environmental and social costs are worth sacrificing for what the project will
and productive, but what if isn't. Kariba Dam is one of many projects funded by World Bank in
A little before the time of their incident in Brazil, they had also been funding to fix India's power situation. The Narmada River was known, and is still known for, it's ancestral history of those who lived on it's banks. With little to no recognition, the World Bank insisted that reservoirs to be built ontop of such sacred and memorable places in order to provide help for India's situation. Along with the reservoirs, dams were created. This led social disruption and resented against the World Bank, seeing as an alternative way of supplying India's people with power would've been better than destroying a part of their
In the case of the proposal to fund Brazil with dams, irrigation, power, roads, and funds to develop crops the World Bank has those funds. As a representative of the World Bank, this proposal is currently not very wise and the impact it will have on the people of Brazil will not be a positive one, and that it will not yield a great return to the World Bank unless some adjustments to the proposal are made.
There are 75,000 dams in the US today, and have been part of American culture for many years. As the demand for electricity grew the government looked into hydroelectric power that could be produced from these dams. These dams were also used to back up water for towns to use as a water source and to also redirect water for irrigation purposes. The US Army Corps of Engineers headed many of these projects for the government and when World War II came about dams starting popping up everywhere to power project to build planes, ships, bombs, and other material for war. But quickly after the war many of the dams became obsolete and not even worth the cost it would take to re-open and run them. That is where the film comes into play advocating to remove and demolish these obsolete masses of concrete and let the rivers flow.
One of America’s most popular attractions the Hoover Dam, may look like a large block of concrete but it is really much more than it appears. “Built during the Depression; thousands of men and their families came to Black Canyon to tame the Colorado River. It took less than five years, in a harsh and barren land, to build the largest dam of its time.” (https://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/history/storymain.html) Most people don't know that this gigantic dam is capable of producing enough energy for its surrounding states. Consequently, there is more to this story than some would think. This Moving 5.5 million tons of dirt. building this multi-million dollar dam was essential for the future of America.
Manzoor, K. P. (2011). The global water crisis: Issues and solutions. IUP Journal of Infrastructure, 9(2), 34-43.
INTRODUCTION: Water assets building is growing massively today. Dams have the most vital part in using water assets. They were developed taxing year before increasing present data about hydrology and hydro mechanics. All through the historical backdrop of the world, dams have been utilized effectively as a part of gathering, putting away and overseeing water expected to manage human advancement. Dams have a lot of positive and negative impacts on the earth. Their advantages like controlling stream administration, subsequently forestalling surges, getting local and water system water from put away water and creating vitality from hydro control. While dam give noteworthy advantage to our general public, their effect on the encompassing incorporates resettlement and migration, financial effect, natural concerns, sedimentation issue, security angles and so on. Notwithstanding their vital social and natural advantages, it is vital to minimize the negative impacts of the hoover dam on the earth with respect to feasible advancement.