World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development, A New Framework for Decision Making (2000), p. 104.

(ii) Selection of sites for dams

Beaver dams, yes. Hoover Dam, no.

In 2000, the World Commission on Dams estimated the global total of persons displaced by dams alone to be between 40 and 80 million.

This shows you the positions of some of these dams.

Most of China s dams serve multiple functions, including generating electric power and meeting manufacturing, mining, irrigation, and municipal supply water needs. By ramping up the size of its dams, China now not only boasts the world s largest number of mega dams, but is also the biggest global producer of hydropower, with an installed generating capacity of 230 gigawatts.

Displacements were also caused by major development projects, such as large dams or mines.

One innovative technique is the use of underground dams to capture water flowing in shallow aquifers.

Examples of non participation, inadequate consultations, or non consent were cited, as in cases of the building of hydroelectric dams.

The world in which I operate operates with designs regarding roads, or dams, or provision of electricity that have not been revisited in 60 years.

The State Council, seeking to boost the country s already large hydropower capacity by 120 gigawatts, has identified 54 new dams in addition to the ones currently under construction as key construction projects in the revised energy sector plan up to 2015. Most of the new dams are planned for the biodiversity rich southwest, where natural ecosystems and indigenous cultures are increasingly threatened.

So, we all know about the Narmada river, the tragedies of dams, the tragedies of huge projects which displace people and wreck river systems without providing livelihoods.

Many Parties reported on options to increase domestic water supply these included prospecting for, and extraction of, deep groundwater, increasing storage capacity by building reservoirs and dams, and improving watershed management.

It had built 246 dams and reservoirs over the past 16 years and had adopted a 30 year rural development plan, which would provide drinking water to every village in Myanmar.

They found in the late '30s 10 years after they'd made these dams that the people in Northern Alabama were infected with malaria, about a third to half of them were infected with malaria.

But they turned away and so We let loose upon them a devastating flood that swept away the dams and replaced their gardens by two others bearing bitter fruits, tamarisks, and a few lote trees.

But they turned away and so We let loose upon them a devastating flood that swept away the dams and replaced their gardens by two others bearing bitter fruits, tamarisks, and a few lote trees.

Furthermore, while annual statistics are not regularly compiled, it is widely acknowledged that the consistently largest cause of displacement worldwide is large scale development projects, such as dams, mines, pipelines, roads and other infrastructure construction.

But they turned away (from Allah), and We sent against them the Flood (released) from the dams, and We converted their two garden (rows) into gardens producing bitter fruit, and tamarisks, and some few (stunted) Lote trees.

But they turned away (from Allah), and We sent against them the Flood (released) from the dams, and We converted their two garden (rows) into gardens producing bitter fruit, and tamarisks, and some few (stunted) Lote trees.

Indeed, when compared to other energy sources, nuclear power ranks higher than oil, coal, and natural gas systems in terms of fatalities, second only to hydroelectric dams. There have been 57 accidents since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.

Such projects underscore the zero sum mentality that seemingly characterizes China s water policy calculations. By embarking on a series of mega dams in its ethnic minority populated borderlands, China is seeking to appropriate river waters before they cross its frontiers.

Unfortunately, it is far from clear that the Chinese model of infrastructure development can be exported universally. China s strong central government overwhelms opposition from people displaced by new roads, bridges, and dams, and for many years ran roughshod over environmental concerns and workers rights.

With hundreds of dams still likely to become targets for protest, pressure will only intensify for a more significant response. The government could launch a broad crackdown on such protests, although this would risk damaging China s prestige internationally and provoking larger, more violent protests.

As China seeks to keep its economic engine running, dams and hyrdopower do represent a cleaner alternative to coal. China plans to double its hydropower capacity to over 120 GW by 2010 and to build more hydropower projects for at least another 20 years.

Northwestern Yunnan is one of the world s most biologically diverse areas, home to half of China s animal species and a quarter of its plant species. Whatever portions of this ecosystem that the dams don t submerge are certain to be disrupted in potentially disastrous ways.

Likewise, Chinese mastery over ultra small, cheap micro hydro dams, which can generate tiny amounts of electricity from mere trickles of water, appeals to power short, river rich Africans. Tens of thousands of micro hydro systems operate in China, and nearly none in Africa.

Dams provided they are adequately sized and designed can contribute to human development by fighting climate change and regulating water supply. Yet in a new context of scarcity, upstream infrastructure projects on international rivers may impact water quality or availability for neighboring states, thus causing tensions.

China s rush to build more dams promises to roil relations across Asia, fostering greater competition for water and impeding the already slow progress toward institutionalizing regional cooperation and integration. If China continues on its current, heedless course, prospects for a rules based order in Asia could perish forever.

A 2013 report by the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the US a pathetic overall grade of D for its infrastructure. The report cited numerous state specific shortcomings, including Michigan s 88 high hazard dams and 1,298 structurally deficient bridges and the 44.5 billion needed to upgrade drinking water systems in California.

These arrangements have indeed made it possible for China to build entire cities in a matter of years, as well as high speed railways, opera houses, stadiums, industrial parks, massive dams, and whatnot. Many people have been lifted out of poverty, and those with the right political connections have become enormously rich.

In some parts of California and Texas, a portion of the water supply is provided to consumers for almost nothing delivered by a network of dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts that were built decades ago. The Hoover Dam, for example, which created Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US, was built in 1936 during the Great Depression as part of the New Deal.

Large holders of sterling balances Nehru s India, Nasser s Egypt, and Peron s Argentina all embarked on major nationalizations and a public sector spending spree they built railways, dams, steel works. The sterling balances proved to be the starting point of vast and inefficient state planning regimes that did long term harm to growth prospects in all the countries that took this course.

No other country has ever managed to assume such unchallenged riparian preeminence on a continent by controlling the headwaters of multiple international rivers and manipulating their cross border flows. China, the world s biggest dam builder with slightly more than half of the approximately 50,000 large dams on the planet is rapidly accumulating leverage against its neighbors by undertaking massive hydro engineering projects on transnational rivers.

China has already built six mega dams on the Mekong the lifeblood for continental Southeast Asia with its latest addition being the 254 meter high Nuozhadu Dam, whose gargantuan reservoir is designed to hold nearly 22 billion cubic meters of water. The current dam building plans threaten the Salween River s Grand Canyon a UNESCO World Heritage site and the pristine, environmentally sensitive areas through which the Brahmaputra and the Mekong flow.

After slowing its dam building program in response to the serious environmental consequences of completion in 2006 of the Three Gorges Dam the world s largest China is now rushing to build a new generation of giant dams. At a time when dam building has largely petered out in the West and run into growing grassroots opposition in other democracies like Japan and India China will remain the nucleus of the world s mega dam projects.

I had the chance to see one of these rivers and the proposed site of one of the country s most controversial dams on a recent trek through the stunning Tiger Leaping Gorge, north of the town of Lijiang in northern Yunnan. On its descent from the roof of the world, the Jinsha River, tributary of the mighty Yangtze, cascades through this ten mile gorge on its way to Shanghai and the East China Sea.

In view of the characteristics that Fujian Province is located in hilly lands and the high speed railway has many tunnels, the regulation requires that the railway construction unit or the railway transportation enterprise should be consulted before building the hilly ponds, reservoirs, and dams and digging the river channels, main canals and wells within the scope of 200 meters from the center line above the high speed railway tunnels on both sides, which might affect the safety of tunnels.