Were the hydro dams financed by the World Bank from 1976 to 2005 worthwhile?

Awojobi, Omotola; Jenkins, Glenn P.

doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2015.06.040

Cited by 35 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Generally, implications of dams on a social scale have been researched elaborately. The research on the impacts of dams are mainly focussed on resettlement implications of large dams in Asia and often favour livelihood or financial aspects [33,[85][86][87].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transferring Water While Transforming Landscape: New Societal Implications, Perceptions and Challenges of Management in the Reservoir System Franconian Lake District

Daus

Koberger

Gnutzmann

et al. 2019

Water

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This study investigates the different stakeholder based discourses and challenges around the Franconian Lake District (FLD), a recently constructed large reservoir system in Germany. The construction and operation of reservoirs represent a massive alteration of their natural and social environments leading to discourses and potential conflicts between a wide scope of heterogeneous interest patterns. Studies have shown that large reservoirs can be an important contributor to water supply, irrigation, energy storage and therefore climate change mitigation on a global scale, which brings these conflicting interests to a broader societal concern. Yet, information about conflicts around existing (German) reservoirs is limited. To assess which issues and conflicts appear on the daily agenda and how they are perceived, communicated and addressed by the stakeholders, a total of 609 articles in the Nürnberger Nachrichten and 22 semi-structured expert interviews were analysed, using qualitative content analysis. The results show that discourses at FLD are predominantly determined by economic factors. Management issues are dominated by discussions about cyanobacteria, which can pose a health risk, thereby impeding recreational use of the lakes and consequently causing economic losses and an image problem for the region. The issue is also strongly interlinked with other aspects of concern and therefore one of the main challenges at the FLD. Due to the construction of the lakes and the evolving strong tourism sector, the formerly agricultural region was subject to a major structural change linking together a very heterogeneous set of interests. The results of this study can help in establishing a management framework to suit all stakeholders and possibly be transferrable to similar projects.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transferring Water While Transforming Landscape: New Societal Implications, Perceptions and Challenges of Management in the Reservoir System Franconian Lake District

Daus

Koberger

Gnutzmann

et al. 2019

Water

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“…Consequently, the second scenario proposed considers the rehabilitation of Inga 1 and Inga 2, and leaves the development of I3 open for realization. The deployment of I3 is analysed from the last CAPEX announced for the hydropower plant of 14 bUSD (10.8 b€) [80], up to the estimated cost overrun of +100% (rounded from 96% as already experienced) as it is the average cost overrun of large hydropower plants found by [8,26]. Since further stages of Grand Inga depend on the installation of Inga 3, for this particular scenario any GI deployment after Inga 3 is not considered.…”

Section: Optional Inga 3 Scenariomentioning

confidence: 99%

Repercussion of Large Scale Hydro Dam Deployment: The Case of Congo Grand Inga Hydro Project

et al. 2018

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Abstract:The idea of damming the Congo River has persisted for decades. The Grand Inga project, of up to 42 GW power generation capacity, can only be justified as part of a regional energy master plan for Africa, to bridge the energy gap on the continent. Proponents of very large dams have often exaggerated potential multiple benefits of a mega dam, marginalise environmental concerns and neglect the true risk of such projects, in particular for the fragile economies of developing countries. Studies have reported the financial risks, cost overruns and schedule spills associated with very large dams. In addition, most of the dams in the region are poorly managed. Therefore, the type and scale of Grand Inga is not the solution for millions of not yet electrified people in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this research, scenarios are defined based on announced costs and expected costs. Cost escalations in the range from 5% to 100% for the Inga project in 2030 and 2040 are considered, as average cost overruns are typically at about 70% or higher for similar mega-dams. It was found that when the cost overrun for the Grand Inga project exceeds 35% and −5% for 2030 and 2040 assumptions, respectively, the project becomes economically non-beneficial. In all scenarios, Sub-Saharan Africa can mainly be powered by solar photovoltaics to cover the electricity demand and complemented by wind energy, supported by batteries. Hydropower and biomass-based electricity can serve as complementary resources. The grid frequency stability of the power system is analysed and discussed in the paper. Benefits of the Inga hydropower project have to be increasingly questioned, in particular due to the fast cost decline of solar photovoltaics and batteries.

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“…systematically and significantly underestimated (Ansar et al, 2014;Awojobi and Jenkins, 2015), which adds to the uncertainty in the net present value of the infrastructure projects. By evaluating the development plans in the 2010, 2030, and 2050 scenarios, we showed that the timing of the investments plays an important role in an evolving socio-economic context.…”

Section: Limitations and Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Depending on the context, additional interrelations in the water-energy-food nexus, which are currently not simulated in the framework, could play an important role, such as energy consumption for water treatment or desalinization (Dubreuil et al, 2013), energy for water pumping in the agricultural or domestic sector (Bauer-Gottwein et al, 2016;Dubreuil et al, 2013), water for cooling purposes of thermal power plants (Payet-Burin et al, 2018;Van Vliet et al, 2016), and production of crops for biofuels (Mirzabaev et al, 2015). For study cases where these interactions have an important impact, they can be added to the modelling framework.…”

Section: Limitations and Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

WHAT-IF: an open-source decision support tool for water infrastructure investment planning within the water–energy–food–climate nexus

Payet-Burin

Kromann

Pereira-Cardenal

et al. 2019

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Water infrastructure investment planning must consider the interdependencies within the water–energy–food nexus. Moreover, uncertain future climate, evolving socio-economic context, and stakeholders with conflicting interests, lead to a highly complex decision problem. Therefore, there is a need for decision support tools to objectively determine the value of investments, considering the impacts on different groups of actors, and the risks linked to uncertainties. We present a new open-source hydro-economic optimization model, incorporating in a holistic framework, representations of the water, agriculture, and power systems. The model represents the joint development of nexus-related infrastructure and policies and evaluates their economic impact, as well as the risks linked to uncertainties in future climate and socio-economic development. We apply the methodology in the Zambezi River basin, a major African basin shared by eight countries, in which multiple investment opportunities exist, including new hydropower plants, new or resized reservoirs, development of irrigation agriculture, and investments into the power grid. We show that it is crucial to consider the links between the different systems when evaluating the impacts of climate change and socio-economic development, which will ultimately influence investment decisions. We find that climate change could induce economic losses of up to USD 2.3 billion per year in the current system. We show that the value of the hydropower development plan is sensitive to future fuel prices, carbon pricing policies, the capital cost of solar technologies, and climate change. Similarly, we show that the value of the irrigation development plan is sensitive to the evolution of crop yields, world market crop prices, and climate change. Finally, we evaluate the opportunity costs of restoring the natural floods in the Zambezi Delta; we find limited economic trade-offs under the current climate, but major trade-offs with irrigation and hydropower generation under the driest climate change scenario.

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Were the hydro dams financed by the World Bank from 1976 to 2005 worthwhile?

Cited by 35 publications

References 10 publications

Transferring Water While Transforming Landscape: New Societal Implications, Perceptions and Challenges of Management in the Reservoir System Franconian Lake District

Transferring Water While Transforming Landscape: New Societal Implications, Perceptions and Challenges of Management in the Reservoir System Franconian Lake District

Repercussion of Large Scale Hydro Dam Deployment: The Case of Congo Grand Inga Hydro Project

WHAT-IF: an open-source decision support tool for water infrastructure investment planning within the water–energy–food–climate nexus

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