Dispassionate Damming: Site C and The Inertia of Colonial Development

Historically, massive hydroelectric projects have caused irreparable harm to ecosystems and resulted in the dispossession and displacement of indigenous peoples worldwide. Such development projects prioritize wealth wrought from material extraction over the total health of ecological systems. The case of the Site C dam in British Columbia is another settler-colonial development project which is set to destroy a valley in the name of energy production. Treaty 8 First Nations argue that the dam will impede on treaty rights, as the clogging of the river and partial flooding of the valley will negatively impact indigenous ways of life. BC Hydro, the providence-owned energy company behind the dam, has continued with the project despite years of legal recourse, direct action, and budget set-backs. The company could stop the project, stop damming, and meet energy needs through less disruptive means, but chooses instead to repeat the same mistakes of the past. BC Hydro\u27s defenses for the project pale in comparison both to the anti-site C arguments, and to the colonial fervor with which the company was founded, during the height of the go-go years of dam building. The Site C project continues because of the inertia of colonial development, which understands not the value of a valley, but the profits of a dam

Impacts of Climate Change on Human Development

human development, climate change

Environmental and social aspects

Presented at Competing interests in water resources - searching for consensus: proceedings from the USCID water management conference held on December 5-7, 1996 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Includes bibliographical references.Carbon emissions from the use of fossil fuels are increasing. Global warming continues resulting in more violent and destructive storms. The world population is increasing by nearly 90 million annually. Forests are rapidly being destroyed in the developing countries. Irrigated area per capita and food grain production are declining. The competition from the cities for water is increasing. Many aquifers are being polluted and/or over pumped. However, deforestation, soil erosion, population growth, and flooding decrease with water resources and other economic developments. Large new areas can be brought into agricultural production through the construction of irrigation and drainage facilities. There are many good sites for large dams in the developing countries. These dams can be used for hydropower, flood storage, irrigation supplies, and domestic water. Hydropower is clean energy and should be substituted for a large portion of the present use of fossil fuels. Benefits from fertilizers increase with increasing availability of water. Governments and politicians are poor managers of water resources. Many large development possibilities are international in scope. Electrical grids should be more interconnected and possibly continental in scope. Few if any developing countries have an institutional capacity for coordinated water resources developments. The international lending agencies should give priority to the financing of national and international water resources development authorities that at least partially privatize water resource management. Also priority should be given to those projects and activities that improve the environment

Restoring the River Niger

The River Niger is the third longest river in Africa and this comes with high demands from raw water supply to agriculture and other livelihoods. This river located in West Africa passes through diverse climate regions on its way to the sea including areas prone to desertification; and although it is a transboundary river, much global interest is not placed on it; therefore much importance is not placed on preserving the nature and quality of the river. This paper incorporates information found on various databases in form of research conducted at strategic locations along the course of the river, from source to delta, and on its major tributaries. It uses this information as data to map man-made disturbances and its interaction with the environmental conditions along the course of the river. It outlines disturbances from the activities of the riparian community and the basin authority which contribute to contaminated tributaries from rural areas, wastewater disposal, heavy metal from catchment runoff, infrastructures and other restrictions on the river’s flow path, and their interaction with the hydrology and climatic factors. It finally offers considerations for mitigating these disturbances, with reference to and lessons learnt from the actions and action plans from other river governing and monitoring bodies such as the Nile Basin Initiative

Interpreting mega-development projects as territorial traps: the case of irrigation schemes on the shores of Lake Chad (Borno State, Nigeria)

From the colonial era up to the present, mega-irrigation projects for agriculture have played a key role in the production of state space in Sahelian Africa. Transferring a concept proposed by Agnew (1994) onto a different scale, it is possible to interpret these mega-projects as \u201cterritorial traps\u201d. In fact, they set up boundaries (physical, relational, cognitive and operative) that force evolutive trajectories of the areas involved along rigid pathways. In the aftermath of the systematic failure of the mega-projects, farmers are faced with constraints determined by the trap imposed, without having any of the promised benefits in terms of productive growth, i.e. income. In many situations, the farmers have identified \u201ca means of escape\u201d from these catastrophes by transgressing the boundaries imposed by the territorial traps and reintroducing parts of the infrastructure to a common use. The case study presented regards the irrigation mega-projects on the shores of Lake Chad, in Nigeria

Water as a Weapon of War in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin

The article’s scientific goal is to investigate the Weimar Triangle countries’ relations with the United Arab Emirates. Therefore, the author asks the research question. Are the Weimar Triangle states’ role and significance increasing in the external dimension of the European Union? Based on the example of the United Arab Emirates, the research adopted a hypothesis. It is the statement that after Brexit, the Weimar Triangle countries have a chance to improve their importance in the EU external activities. Apart from case studies, to revise the hypothesis, the author performed a meticulous comparative analysis. Moreover, the research implemented International Practice Theory as an appropriate tool to investigate the presented issue. This empirical research and its findings resulted from over ten years of the author’s direct observation, analysis, and participation in many initiatives, both in the European Union and in the United Arab Emirates. The Middle East for the Weimar Triangle countries is more significant than just from a trade potential perspective. The situation in this region is also affecting Europe, as well as global security architecture. For this reason, one should develop a coherent and comprehensive EU foreign and security policy towards the region, and the Weimar Triangle formula should be one of its pillars

Insurance and deliberation as drought disaster risk reduction strategies

As the international community is moving from response to disaster risk reduction, it becomes imperative to take the whole risk chain into consideration, from prevention to rehabilitation of a droughtstricken area. To assess impacts on drought-stricken groups, it is useful to take a close look at risk spreading strategies these groups already use, which reduce their vulnerability to shocks. In Turkey, there is a very little coordination between adjacent water user groups on a river or in an irrigation scheme. This means there is no mutual coordination mechanism in times of unexpected drought. The article argues that a deliberative multi-stakeholder approach can enhance Disaster Risk Reduction, as currently practiced in Latin America and South Asia, and explores avenues for mutual crop and drought insurance initiatives such as currently practiced as pilot projects in India, and assess its applicability for the drought prone regions in Turkey, which experienced a coordination gap in the 2007-2008 drought

Disaster risk reduction measures n Bangladesh

Disasters damage the entire economy of the country when they predominantly take place in developing countries. While no country in the world is entirely safe, lack of capacity to limit the impact of hazards has made developing countries being the most vulnerable nations to natural disasters. Bangladesh is being identified as a country that is vulnerable to climate change and subsequent natural disasters every year. Dense population and poverty has reduced the adaptability of Bangladesh in disastrous situations thus further increasing severity of impact from disasters. Owing to geographical settings, Bangladesh is currently ranked as one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries in the world. The frequent natural hazards such as cyclones, storm surges, floods, droughts, tornados,riverbank erosions, earthquakes, arsenic contamination of groundwater and landslides account for significant losses in human lives and physical assets while effects are further reflected in social settings, ecosystems and the economic well-being of the country. This paper evaluates the types of natural disasters Bangladesh is subjecting to, how they have affected the Bangladesh community and existing disaster risk reduction strategies. Paper also evaluates four main domains of disaster vulnerability reduction measures namely physical, engineering, structural and organisational. Existing disaster risk reduction strategies adopted in Bangladesh are linked with the aforementioned four domains of disaster vulnerability reduction measures. A comprehensive literature review is used as the research method. Literature synthesis suggests that Bangladesh is being using a combination of disaster risk reduction measures ranging from technical to social measures