Exporting dams: China's hydropower industry goes global

McDonald, Kristen; Bosshard, Peter; Brewer, Nicole

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2008.07.023

Cited by 132 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…For example the construction of the Gibe III dam on the Omo River in Ethiopia is being undertaken without detailed impact assessment on the lives of indigenous communities and several important biodiversity in lake Turkana, the world's largest desert lake. The situation is very much the same for other damns constructed or planned in countries such as Sudan, Nigeria, Mozambique, Ghana, Gabon, Republic of Congo and Mozambique (McDonald et al 2009 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 87%

Regional Assessment of Africa

Anderson

Rudd²,

Parnell

2013

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities

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mentioning

confidence: 87%

Regional Assessment of Africa

Anderson

Rudd²,

Parnell

2013

Urbanization, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Challenges and Opportunities

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“…Sinohydro plays at least one of these roles in 30% of the large dam projects in the LMB, and handles the entirety of financing, developing, and building of five of the 13 large Chinese dams in the Lao PDR [30]. Large SOEs like Sinohydro often have higher capacity, scalability, greater political backing, more experience gained from domestic construction projects, and can usually build dams at a lower price than their competitors [31]. These large-scale projects usually require approval from the highest levels of government in both Beijing and in the LMB nations, and thus connections with the state serve as an asset.…”

Section: Chinese Soe Hydropower Expansion In the Greater Mekong Subrementioning

confidence: 99%

Chinese State-Owned Enterprise Investment in Mekong Hydropower: Political and Economic Drivers and Their Implications across the Water, Energy, Food Nexus

Matthews¹,

Motta

2015

Water

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Over the last decade, Chinese State-Owned Enterprises have emerged as among the most active investors in Mekong Basin hydropower development. This paper uses a political economy analysis to examine the forces that drive Chinese State-Owned Enterprises to invest in hydropower in the Mekong Basin. We focus our analysis on the Lancang (Upper Mekong River) in China and in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), with an emphasis on Cambodia. The analysis reveals how powerful political and economic forces from within China and the GMS influence the pace, location and scale of investments in hydropower. These forces include foreign exchange reserves, trade packages and foreign direct investment, and political alliances. Combining the political economy and nexus approaches, we conclude that although policies from China recognize interconnections across the nexus, political and economic forces craft narratives that downplay or disregard these nexus interconnections and trade-offs. This in turn, influences how trade-offs and interconnections in hydropower development are managed and recognized in both local and transboundary contexts, thereby, creating potentially significant negative impacts on livelihoods, food security and the environment.

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“…Sinohydro, a Chinese state-owned enterprise (SOE), is leading the global hydropower sector in terms of number and size of dams built, investment sums and global coverage. While China has a long history of domestic dam-building, recent developments have led to Chinese overseas projects, particularly in low and middle income countries in Asia and Africa [6,26] of which 38% are built in Southeast Asia, including in Cambodia [22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Political Ecology of Chinese Large Dams in Cambodia: Implications, Challenges and Lessons Learnt from the Kamchay Dam

Siciliano¹,

Urban²,

Tan‐Mullins³

et al. 2016

Preprint

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Given the opportunities offered by foreign investment in energy infrastructure mostly by Chinese firms, the Government of Cambodia is giving high priority to developing hydropower resources for reducing energy poverty and powering economic growth. Using a "Political ecology of the Asian drivers" framework, this paper assesses China's involvement in the development of large dams' in Cambodia and its impacts on the access of natural resources such as water and energy by dam builders, local communities and the government. This analysis is based on 61 interviews and 10 focus group discussions with affected communities, institutional actors, Chinese dam builders and financiers in relation to the first large Chinese dam built in Cambodia, the Kamchay dam. Based on the results of the analysis this paper makes recommendations on how to improve the governance of large dams to ensure that the dams' benefits are shared more equally.

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Exporting dams: China's hydropower industry goes global

Cited by 132 publications

References 3 publications

Regional Assessment of Africa

Regional Assessment of Africa

Chinese State-Owned Enterprise Investment in Mekong Hydropower: Political and Economic Drivers and Their Implications across the Water, Energy, Food Nexus

The Political Ecology of Chinese Large Dams in Cambodia: Implications, Challenges and Lessons Learnt from the Kamchay Dam

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