Advantages and disadvantages of large dams

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Response to the ultimate Report:

The construction of large dams has been a questionable issue when you look at the discussion on power supplies and liquid resource administration. To bridge the distinctions between various passions, the whole world Commission on Dams (WCD) ended up being established in 1998. The Commission has evaluated worldwide connection with the personal benefits of large dams (15 m or higher high in accordance with a reservoir level of a lot more than 3 million m3), and has now made recommendations on decision making procedures and basic principles for planning and performing such projects.

In Norway, electricity manufacturing is the main function of dam-building. Nearly 100 percent of your electricity materials tend to be hydropower-based, so we are suffering from a good administrative system because of this in the past a century. Norway features added into WCD's work both in monetary terms (a total of NOK 8 million from the Ministry of international Affairs is channelled through World Bank) and has in addition provided technical assistance.

General reviews

The Commission's report is extremely interesting and of use, and you will be an invaluable share to the additional debate about large dams. The data Base that Commission developed during its review of the performance of huge dams will undoubtedly be important to any person focusing on these problems.

The suggestions inside report could be used to reduce accidental undesireable effects of dam-building projects, and specifically their particular social, environmental and social impacts. Norway would urge the importance of using these aspects into consideration during dam-building tasks, rather than just taking into consideration the economic aspects.

But future choices on dam-building will still have to be considering an evaluation regarding the benefits and drawbacks of building large dams and of the choices. One weakness of report is it provides little weight to a description associated with socio-economic and benefit advantages of a dam when it comes to populace its designed to serve. It can be interesting to see an even more thorough discussion for the options to creating dams as well as exactly what the commercial prices and ecological and social effects of such options will be.

Like, the report cites greenhouse...