scholarly journals Possible Socioeconomic Consequences of the Hydropower Dams on the Downstream Communities: Case Study Hatgyi Dam

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-251
Author(s):  
Kyaw Thu Han
Keyword(s):  
Hydropower Dams ◽  
Downstream Communities ◽  
Socioeconomic Consequences

scholarly journals Exploring the Impact of Resettlement on Women: A Case Study of the Nam Mang 3 Hydropower Dam in Central Laos

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Singkham Lueyeevang
Keyword(s):  
Energy Production ◽  
Strategy Development ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Time Saving ◽  
Grazing Land ◽  
Hydropower Dam ◽  
Hydropower Dams ◽  
Dam Site ◽  
The Impact

<p>Over the last decade, construction of hydropower dams has increased rapidly around the world, including in developing countries. For many countries including Laos, energy production and export play a significant role in promoting and boosting economic growth and development. Energy production generates substantial revenue and foreign exchange from exporting electricity and expands economic activity domestically. However, construction of hydropower dams also causes negative effects on the people who live at and around the dam site. Some local communities have been affected indirectly, while others require relocation to other areas bringing significant change, including for women. This research explores the impact of resettlement from hydropower dam creation on women by using the Nam Mang 3 hydropower dam in central Laos as a case study. This dam, completed in 2005, required the relocation of approximately 150 households from two villages at the dam site. The research draws on a social constructivist epistemology, qualitative methods including semi-structured interviews, and analysis of relevant policy documents. Interviews involved 18 participants including both male and female from the three affected villages. Results indicate that the resettlement of villagers by the Nam Mang 3 hydropower dam has generally improved living conditions of the resettled communities. Women were found to have greater opportunities to benefit from home-based business, employment and wage labouring. In addition, with better access to modern facilities and services, women have been able to save greater time from agricultural activities and divert this time saving to other economic activities. Overall, access to water supplies, roads, and transport have reduced women’s workload significantly. Access to improved health services and facilities have also improved women’s wellbeing. Girls have greater opportunities to attend school and seek employment in towns. However, this research identified some challenges experienced by the resettled such as the reduction of agricultural and grazing land area, and that new livelihood options were not accessible to all women. Instead of these challenges, the experience with the Nam Mang 3 hydropower project has highlighted one of the key lessons learnt that is worth highlighting for future resettlement programs, which is to have the resettlers fully engaged in the entire process of resettlement and livelihood strategy development.</p>

scholarly journals The Existence of Multiple Hydro-Mentalities and their Implications for Water Governance: A Case Study from Sri Lanka

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2043
Author(s):  
Kavindra Paranage ◽  
Nancy Yang
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Alternative Position ◽  
Downstream Communities ◽  
Technical Solutions

Traditionally, the literature on water management has considered water from a techno-realist point of view by focusing on finding the most effective technical solutions to distribute the largest quantities of water among populations. This paper takes an alternative position by suggesting that particular “ways” of managing water are culturally embedded and that water management practices stem from an underlying hydro-mentality among water users and system designers. To this end, we explore two different water systems in Sri Lanka and argue that each system is underpinned by a particular hydro-mentality that influences the ways in which water is managed by downstream communities.

scholarly journals Understanding the Relationship between Water Infrastructure and Socio-Political Configurations: A Case Study from Sri Lanka

Water ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 1402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kavindra Paranage
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Irrigation System ◽  
Water Infrastructure ◽  
Infrastructure Management ◽  
Water Users ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
Downstream Communities

Academic scholarship in the social sciences has, in recent years, documented how water management infrastructure connects and disconnects people and flows, portraying and defining inequalities. The present work contributes to advancing this perspective by undertaking a case study to comparatively examine two irrigation-based water infrastructure systems in Sri Lanka: the tank cascade system and the surface irrigation system. The analysis demonstrates that differences in the layout of the water infrastructure directly contribute to the ways in which downstream communities are socially, economically and politically configured. Specifically, the arrangement of water infrastructure influences the degree of water users’ dependence on each other, the degree of social stratification between head-end and tail-end farmers, and the degree to which water is regarded as an ‘economic’ object. It can be concluded that the technical system of water infrastructure is inextricably bound to society and should, therefore, be considered a socio-material assemblage. Thus, it is important that policy decisions on water infrastructure management treat the structuring of infrastructure as experimental and potentially reversible.

Teenage Childbearing and Long-Term Socioeconomic Consequences: A Case Study in Sweden

2001 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petra Otterblad Olausson ◽  
Bengt Haglund ◽  
Gunilla Ringback Weitoft ◽  
Sven Cnattingius
Keyword(s):  
Teenage Childbearing ◽  
Socioeconomic Consequences

scholarly journals Unraveling the complexity of human behavior and urbanization on community vulnerability to floods

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Hemmati ◽  
Hussam N. Mahmoud ◽  
Bruce R. Ellingwood ◽  
Andrew T. Crooks
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Flood Risk ◽  
Land Development ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Reduction Techniques ◽  
Socioeconomic Consequences ◽  
Flood Prone Areas

AbstractFloods are among the costliest natural hazards and their consequences are expected to increase further in the future due to urbanization in flood-prone areas. It is essential that policymakers understand the factors governing the dynamics of urbanization to adopt proper disaster risk reduction techniques. Peoples’ relocation preferences and their perception of flood risk (collectively called human behavior) are among the most important factors that influence urbanization in flood-prone areas. Current studies focusing on flood risk assessment do not consider the effect of human behavior on urbanization and how it may change the nature of the risk. Moreover, flood mitigation policies are implemented without considering the role of human behavior and how the community will cope with measures such as buyout, land acquisition, and relocation that are often adopted to minimize development in flood-prone regions. Therefore, such policies may either be resisted by the community or result in severe socioeconomic consequences. In this study, we present a new Agent-Based Model (ABM) to investigate the complex interaction between human behavior and urbanization and its role in creating future communities vulnerable to flood events. We identify critical factors in the decisions of households to locate or relocate and adopt policies compatible with human behavior. The results show that when people are informed about the flood risk and proper incentives are provided, the demand for housing within 500-year floodplain may be reduced as much as 15% by 2040 for the case study considered. On the contrary, if people are not informed of the risk, 29% of the housing choices will reside in floodplains. The analyses also demonstrate that neighborhood quality—influenced by accessibility to highways, education facilities, the city center, water bodies, and green spaces, respectively—is the most influential factor in peoples’ decisions on where to locate. These results provide new insights that may be used to assist city planners and stakeholders in examining tradeoffs between costs and benefits of future land development in achieving sustainable and resilient cities.

scholarly journals Modified Transboundary Water Interaction Nexus (TWINS): Xayaburi Dam Case Study

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 710
Author(s):  
Richard Grünwald ◽  
Wenling Wang ◽  
Yan Feng
Keyword(s):  
Public Attitude ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Mekong River ◽  
Transboundary Water ◽  
Conflict Of Interests ◽  
Water Interaction ◽  
Hydropower Dam ◽  
Hydropower Dams ◽  
Political Leverage

The Mekong River comprises six riparian states and supports the livelihood of more than 65 million people. Although the rapid joint river development enlarges the pie of benefits, it also deepens existing conflict of interests and motivating downstream countries to use more power to get better control over shared waters. The purpose of the article is to operationalize a new Transboundary Water Interaction Nexus (TWINS) and interpret interchange of cooperation and conflict between Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam about the Xayaburi hydropower dam in the last 19 years (2000–2019). Our results show that (1) there is significant disparity between the official and public attitude towards the Xayaburi dam, (2) since 2013, the debates about the Xayaburi dam issue has been substituted by other mainstream hydropower dams, (3) the Xayaburi dam indicates that hydropower dams are one of the national priorities that will be pursued at all cost, (4) Laos gained confidence and significant political leverage on downstream countries since the groundbreaking ceremony of the Xayaburi dam in November 2012, (5) failure of the Mekong River Commission’s Procedure of Notification and Prior Consultations (PNPCA) with the Xayauri dam motivated downstream countries to redesign the institutional arrangements and stakeholder consultations.

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