2. Sustainable Development of Water Resources

Increased awareness of the natural environment and its endangered situation is one of the most important developments of the late twentieth century. The United Nations "Declaration on the Environment" and the Club of Rome's message on the "Limits to Growth" left their mark on our thinking in 1972, followed in 1987 by immediate and worldwide agreement on the convincing concept of "sustainable development" as propagated in the Brundtland Report of the United Nations on "Our Common Future". In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) put the issue into a global perspective and drew up a comprehensive action program in Agenda 21.

Like many other international organizations dedicated to the engineering of water resources development (see Annex B ), especially leading financing institutions such as the World Bank, ICOLD fully supports these concepts and principles and adheres to them as basic guidelines for its own work. Attention to the social and environmental aspects of dams and reservoirs must be a dominating concern pervading all our activities in the same way as the concern for safety. We now aim at balancing the need for the development of water resources with the conservation of the environment in a way which will not compromise future generations.

In search of this balance, ICOLD members should be guided by the following aspects of environmental policy:

a) Concern for the environment, including both natural conditions and social aspects, must be manifest from the first planning steps, throughout all phases of design and implementation, and during the entire operating life of a project.

Dam promoters must be aware of the fact that although dams are the most important means of making surface water available at the place and time of demand, there are also other, non-structural means of increasing water utilization which can be applied in addition to dams or as an alternative, such as the tapping and recharging of groundwater or desalination of seawater.

Furthermore, with resources increasingly limited or difficult of access, more thought must be given to demand-side management, to achieving better results with less water input by increasing the efficiency of water use in irrigated agriculture and industry, by reducing losses in supply systems, by the treatment and recycling of waste water, and by the conservation of water and energy.

Hence, during the initial stages of planning a dam project, the question should be studied whether alternative solutions exist that could possibly fulfil the various purposes of the dam project at lower long-term costs to society and the environment.

b) In the past it has been the hallmark of our very best engineers to see the natural environment as one of their responsibilities too, which is why many dams and reservoirs harmonize so well with their environment.

Today, however, the enormous increase in human knowledge, including that in the field of environmental science, means that a whole team of specialists is needed to access and utilize that knowledge for a water resources development project.

c) The larger the project, the greater the effects on the natural and social environment to be expected, and the wider the scope of the multidisciplinary, holistic studies which they require. Large-scale development demands integrated planning for an entire river basin before the implementation of the first individual project(s). Where river basins are part of more than one country, such planning presupposes international cooperation.

d) Projects must be judged everywhere and without exception by the state-of-the-art of the technologies involved and by current standards of environmental care. The scope for reducing any detrimental impacts on the environment through alternative solutions, project modifications in response to particular needs, or mitigating measures should be thoroughly investigated, evaluated and implemented.

A comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment, since 1971 mandatory in a growing number of ICOLD member countries, ought to become standard procedure everywhere as part of project conceptualization, that is well before final design and the start of construction.

Countries still lacking in expertise or the legal framework and administrative structures should receive assistance from countries where the relevant legislation is more advanced and the necessary practical experience has been gained with regard to the extent of the investigations required, the methods and procedures to be employed, and the conclusions to be drawn from the results. Special attention should be paid to any effects on biodiversity or the habitat of rare or endangered species.

e) The decision on what is usually a very considerable investment for a dam project must be based on an unequivocally realistic economic analysis, especially in the case of a large project in a developing country which would tie down a major share of its financial resources for many years. Any tendency to overstate the benefits and understate the costs must be strictly avoided. This also requires taking the impacts on the natural and social environment into account. In spite of proposals put forward by international financing institutions and a growing literature on the subject, some such impacts are difficult to quantify or plainly defy expression in monetary terms. In such cases, they must be incorporated in the decision making process at a higher level of judgment than is implied by a merely numerical cost-benefit analysis, and the dam promoter should explain how such non-quantifiable impacts affect his decision.

An important item on the benefit side is the useful life of the reservoir. Hence, actually available live storage volume must be estimated according to reliable data on the transportation of solids according to realistic assumptions on reservoir sedimentation processes and the effect of mitigating measures. Sedimentation control in the reservoir by sediment flushing, sluicing or dredging must be supported by erosion control in the watershed in order to prolong reservoir life as far into the future as possible.

Multipurpose benefits which do not produce revenues for financing the project must nevertheless be taken into account in assessment of a project or a comparison with alternatives. Such comparison includes the environmental advantages of hydropower over thermal generation.

f) Involuntary resettlement must be handled with special care, managerial skill and political concern based on comprehensive social research, and sound planning for implementation. The associated costs must be included in the comparative economic analyses of alternative projects, but should be managed independently to make sure that the affected population will be properly compensated. For the population involved, resettlement must result in a clear improvement of their living standard, because the people directly affected by a project should always be the first to benefit instead of suffering for the benefit of others [For that reason, under a law dating back to 1916, communities in Switzerland are entitled to considerable annual payments and quotas of free energy for granting the rights to hydropower development on their territory]. Special care must be given to vulnerable ethnic groups.

g) Even if there is no resettlement problem, the impact of water resources development projects on local people can be considerable during both construction and operation. All such projects have to be planned, implemented and operated with the clear consent of the public concerned. Hence, the organization of the overall decision-making process, incorporating the technical design as a sub-process, should involve all relevant interest groups from the initial stages of project conceptualization, even if existing legislation does not (yet) demand it.

Such concerted action requires continuous, comprehensive and objective information on the project to be given to governmental authorities, the media, local action committees or other non-governmental organizations, and above all to the directly or indirectly affected people and their representatives. In this information transfer from planners to the public, dam engineers must contribute, through their professional expertise, to a clear understanding and dispassionate discussion based on facts and not on irrational ideas of the positive and negative aspects of a project and its possible alternatives. Dam promoters must act as mediators and educators with the aim of becoming good neighbours and not intruders.

h) A complete post-construction audit of an entire project or at least a performance analysis of major impacts should be carried out in order to determine the extent to which the environmental objectives of the project or of certain mitigating measures are being achieved. The results of such analyses should be published as a contribution to our knowledge on such matters, and for application to future projects.

i) As soon as a project becomes operational, its impact on the environment should be assessed at regular intervals, based on data and sources resulting from adequate pre-construction monitoring. Depending on the individual situation, certain critical parameters should be monitored as a basis for a subsequent performance analysis of the project, resulting in a better understanding of its interactions with the environment.

j) In this context, there is also a need for more ecological research on dams and reservoirs which have already seen many years of service. Mistakes and shortcomings could be avoided, many of the recurring controversies relating to the ecological impacts of new dam projects could be prevented and the problems involved could be clarified and solved more easily, if our latent store of long-term experience with the operation of so many dams and reservoirs were to be collected, processed, evaluated and published in the framework of research projects based on carefully directed investigations. Such research projects would also provide and enhance the basis for a general policy of intensified collaboration with environmental scientists.

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