Social and environmental effects of large dams

This is the first critical study to system atically analyze the consequences of building large-scale dams. From primary sources and firsthand observa tion, Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard bring together all the evidence from water development projects around the world, including Egypt's Aswan Dam, Ghana's Volta Dam, Bratsk in the USSR, Kurokawa in Japan, and the "model" Tennessee Valley Authority, to produce this comprehensive and profoundly disturbing landmark study.
Popular thinking holds that big dams are of great economic and social benefit because they produce clean power, halt unpredictable flooding, and help combat world hunger by providing water for irriga tion. In fact, the authors demonstrate, big dams and water projects have not only failed to achieve these basic objectives, but they are actually leaving a legacy of unsurpassed cultural destruction, disease, and environmental damage.

The authors consider the difficulties of resettling the inhabitants of areas flooded by reservoirs; the loss of wet lands, forests, and agricultural land; water losses from reservoirs caused by seepage from irrigation canals; and the increasing incidence of water-bome diseases such as malaria associated with perennial irrigation schemes. They also show how these projects have actually triggered earthquakes; been ineffective in control ling floods; destroyed fisheries in the rivers, reservoirs, estuaries, and seas beyond; and created serious problems of water logging and soil salinization. They present evidence of dangerous operational errors and engineering mistakes, underscored by dam collapses in Turin, Italy and Oroville, California.

The authors study ancient and tradi tional irrigation systems which offer alter natives that are appropriate in scale, demonstrably effective, and architecturally stable. They sound a worldwide alarm that the pace of international dam con struction is accelerating, with plans for massive projects on the Amazon in Brazil and on the Yangtse in China. In the United States, major schemes on the drawing board include the Texas Water System and the North American Water and Power Alliance.