by Piyaporn Hawiset
21 November 2000
Along-awaited report, released on November 17, 2000, stated dams of wreak ecological havoc, driving millions from their homes and failing to deliver on their promises of prosperity. The study by the World Commission on Dams was billed as the first thorough independent assessment of dams, the biggest expenditure item in aid budgets between 1950 and the end of the 20th century.
One of the most disturbing findings, the commission said, was that few dams had ever been looked at to see if the benefits outweigh the costs. Dams soaked up four billion dollars a year in aid during their heyday in the 1980s, it says, adding they had so far forced up to 80 million people from their homes. Some dams had helped agriculture by irrigating fields and provided power for homes and industry, but the beneficiaries were invariably the urban and wealthy rather than the rural poor.
The report disclosed that a quarter of dams built to supply water delivered less than half the intended amount.
"In a tenth of old reservoirs, the build-up of silt has more than halved the storage capacity. What's more, by stopping the flow of silt downstream, dams reduce the fertility of floodplains and invariably cause erosion of coastal deltas," destroying fish stocks and bird populations, the report added.
The report, Dams and Development, was issued in London at a ceremony attended by former South African president Nelson Mandela, World Bank president James Wolfensohn and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson. The World Commission on Dams was set up in 1998 by aid agencies, industry, governments and non-governmental organisations.