Abstract

The Hydropolitics of Dams charts the troubled waters of 'heavy engineering' approaches to ecosystem management, exploring the history, benefits and problems of large dams. It then explores diverse ecosystem-based approaches to management of human interactions with the water cycle, concluding that a synthesis of approaches is needed in future. The book also addresses political, economic and legal dimensions of water management. Featuring case studies from China, India and South Africa, this insightful new book argues that there are more appropriate physical and social technologies that can help to sustainably provide access to clean water for all.
Dr Mark Everard's work in all four sectors of society - private, public, academic and voluntary - has taken him across five continents to undertake applied research, policy development and capacity-building relating to the ways in which people connect with ecosystems. The author of twelve other books, including Common Ground (Zed Books, 2011), over sixty peer-reviewed scientific papers and over two hundred technical magazine articles, Mark is also a communicator on sustainability and wider aquatic matters on TV and radio. He has served on numerous government advisory and expert groups in the UK, as well as advising other governments and multinational corporations on sustainability matters. His specialty is on the water environment, land uses across the catchments that influence it, the pressures that people impose upon it and the many often unrecognised benefits that they derive from it. Mark's work includes environmental ethics and economics as a means to bring our intimate interdependencies with ecosystems into the mainstream of public awareness and government thinking.
'Water underpins all life on Earth. The management of water underpins all human societies. Its mismanagement threatens the wellbeing - and indeed the lives - of millions of people. As Mark Everard's fascinating and timely research demonstrates, the devastating extent of that historical mismanagement is now all too clear - as is the imperative of deploying the intimate knowledge that communities have of their own local ecosystems.' Jonathon Porritt, founder and director, Forum for the Future 'This book comes at the right moment. Energy-strapped countries with unpopular governments are seeking to revive the building of large dams (after a slight pause following the report of the World Commission on Dams). Economic recession and crumbling political credibility have revived dams as development tools; but they are an aggravation rather than solution to existing crises. The world's rivers are too valuable ecologically to block them off, drowning communities in the process. What eco-campaigners need is an updated, scientific, value-centred rationale for the defence of river systems. Mark Everard does a well-reasoned job of it, replete with case studies. His vision of deliberative democracy to resolve water dilemmas is the way forward.' Graeme Addison, founding member, Southern Africa Rivers Association, and science writer 'As the emergent economic powers of the global South seek to replicate en masse the large scale, centralized dam-building model of last century, Everard's book is a timely entry into the discourse on the future of global water management. The Hydropolitics of Dams begins as a thoroughly researched primer on the history of dam-building and the many international forums that have taken stock of the benefits and costs of re-engineering the world's rivers. Drawing from scores of case studies from all corners of the world, Everard's critical and grounded analysis brings the reader up to date on the crises facing freshwater ecosystems and, by extension, the future of a prosperous humanity. Fully cognizant of the complexities and realities of the current political, economic and social entrenchment, Everard also builds the case and establishes a framework for a more enlightened and ecologically bound system of watershed governance. I'll be reaching for this volume frequently, both as a reliable reference and a roadmap for solutions on such imperatives as transboundary river cooperation, inclusive and ecosystem-based decision-making, and the guiding principles to catalyze a new era of hydropolitics.' Jason Rainey, executive director, International Rivers 'The Hydropolitics of Dams tackles the conflicts we face in managing our increasingly pressurized water resources both globally and locally. It highlights the need for a way forward centred on knowledge and people, using the best of both engineering and ecosystem-based solutions to develop a more sustainable relationship with the water cycle. Rich in examples from all continents, this book inspires new thinking and explores the practical delivery of sustainable water management.' - Arlin Rickard, chief executive, The Rivers Trust