Hydropower—the politics of water and energy: Introduction and overview
Introduction
The management of water resources has been one of the functions of government since the earliest civilizations arose in the Nile, Yellow, and Indus river valleys. Governments not only decided who would get how much irrigation water, but they also addressed the problems associated with flooding, in some cases regular annual floods such as in the Nile, and in other cases less predictable floods which destroyed lives and property. Some of the earliest public works projects were canals, dikes and aqueducts which used the water resources for the benefit of society and which protected the population from floods.
More than a hundred years ago, electric motors and light bulbs appeared in our societies, and electricity was needed to make them work. The first hydropower plants were constructed in the 1890s, and hydropower became an important new benefit that could be derived from a country's water resources. Governments were involved right from the start, they needed to adjust their water policies and regulations, so that this new use of water resources would fit in harmoniously with traditional users such as irrigation, shipping, fisheries, etc. Then as now, Governments had to ensure that the development of water resources was of overall benefit to society, and took account of the interests of all stakeholders.
Because hydropower has one foot planted in the area of water policy, and the other in the area of energy policy, the major hydro projects in the world have always been subject to government approval, and consequently to government policy and politics. A few of the major hydropower projects around the world were built in politically charged situations. The Tarbela dam in Pakistan was part of the Indus River Agreement intended to prevent resumption of open warfare between India and Pakistan. The Aswan High Dam in Egypt was built by Russia during the cold war, after the USA had declined to support the project. Most large hydro projects are built under less dramatic circumstances, but in all cases governments need to decide whether and under what conditions large hydro projects should be approved.
For any decision-making process, it is essential that all participants be well informed. For highly complex decisions such as those involving hydropower projects this is doubly true. This special issue, devoted entirely to hydropower, attempts to clarify what hydropower is and does, and to set out some of the main policy questions that are the subject of current public debate.
This article will start with a description of the global importance of hydropower, and will then present an overview of all the articles in this special issue. The articles are organized into three main themes: basic information about hydropower, the main policy issues, and future development of hydropower. The first four articles following the present one will give some of the facts about hydropower, and the role it plays today in the power sector. This will then lead into a series of six articles on some of the main policy issues. The last two articles look to the future and provide some thoughts and guidelines about the role of hydro in the coming decades.
Many of the articles in this issue are based on the work of an International Energy Agency (IEA) working group on hydropower, known formally as the “IEA Implementing Agreements for Hydropower Technologies and Programmes”. The Hydropower Implementing Agreement has recently completed a number of studies on the environmental and social impacts of hydropower, and their mitigation measures. The intention was to provide objective, balanced information on some of the controversial issues related to hydropower. Other articles in this special issue are by invited authors well known in the hydropower literature.
Section snippets
Size in energy and economic terms
In 1999, hydropower generated 2659 TWh of electricity (2659×109 kW h), which was 17.5% of the world's total electricity production, and 3.3% of global final energy consumption (IEA Energy Statistics, 1999). If the average wholesale price of electricity is taken to be about 3 cents (US) per kW h, then the annual 1999 production would be worth $ 79,8 billion. For comparison, the GNP of the Philippines, the 40th largest economy in the world, was US $ 78 billion in 1999 (IBRD, World Development Report,
The evolving context of hydropower development
The article by Engelbert Oud, which immediately follows the present one, will trace the evolution of the hydropower industry. Some readers may have recollections dating back to the 70s, when hydropower was generally considered to be a very good thing, and may be asking what has happened to hydropower during the past 20 yr? The answer is that social attitudes have changed, and technology has had to adapt to these changes. Technology is, after all, the application of science to the needs of
The main policy issues—the positive and negative effects of hydropower on society and the environment
The main policy themes related to hydropower are the privatization of electricity markets, the social impacts of dam and reservoir projects, and the environmental impacts of hydropower. The latter two themes have had a strong effect on the public acceptance of large hydropower projects and were also the focus of the IEA Hydropower Agreement's work. For this reason, privatization will not be discussed, and the articles on policy issues will concentrate on the social and environmental effects.
The future of hydropower
The potential hydro sites in the world fall into the following three broad categories:
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sites which are economically viable and socially and environmentally acceptable;
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sites, which are presently not economically viable but are socially and environmentally acceptable;
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sites which are socially and environmentally controversial or unacceptable.
Policy makers and politicians will ultimately define what is socially and environmentally acceptable, and consequently which potential hydro sites in their
Conclusion
The continuing debate about large dams and reservoirs is increasingly focusing on the decision-making process for such projects. Both the IEA and WCD reports agree that public acceptance is one of the most important issues, and recommend that public participation must be a key element of the decision-making process, but not all countries agree on this point. As noted previously, there is also disagreement on which questions are the legitimate concerns of the international community, and which
References (3)
- IBRD, World Development Report, 1999. World Development Report 1998/99. Washington, World Bank (also available on the...
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