Catalog

Helping Rural Prosperity

A river basin project reduces flooding and helps meet demand for water and electricity

Andong, a rural region in the southeast of the Republic of Korea (Korea), rich in heritage sites, lies in a basin bordered by mountains. Numerous mountain rivers feed its main artery, the Nakdong River. Only three decades ago, the Nakdong River would flood regularly, damaging the city of Andong as well as wiping out farmers’ crops and causing widepsread food shortages over a wide area.

All that changed after the Government carried out flood-control measures from the 1970s that included the Andong Dam Multipurpose Development Project and the Nakdong River Basin Development Project. Both were supported by ADB with loans of $22 million and $45 million, respectively, as part of efforts to improve life in the rural areas and promote regional development.

The Adong project not only reduced flooding along the main stem of the Nakdong River, but also helped meet rising demand for municipal, industrial, and irrigation water, and provided electricity through a pumped storage hydropower plant.

Later, the Nakdong project extended flood control by building or improving over 300 kilometers (km) of embankments on both sides of the river, stretching from Andong almost to Daegu, capital of the Yeongnam region. By protecting crops from flooding, the project boosted food production and income for some 20,000 farm families.

Lifesaver: the Andong dam

At a village within sight of Nakdong River, 74-year-old farmer Si-Hwal Yoo and two women family members are bent over, planting garlic in neat rows of earth.

“When I was young, the floods washed away our rice crops,” says Mr. Yoo, straightening up during a break. “Since the Andong dam was built (in 1976) the floods have been reduced and now we grow garlic, beans, sesame seeds, and chilies.”

Other villagers affirm that they have been able to raise their children without the specter of hunger and that higher farm incomes have also enabled them to provide their offspring with a good education.

Several kilometers away, standing on the windswept top of the Andong dam, Ki-Heum Park, an official of Korea Water Resources Corporation, surveys the scene below and says, “This is the head of the Nakdong River, which used to be subject to heavy flooding. Because of flood control works, farmers downriver are able to grow more crops and improve their standard of living.” Rural prosperity followed Korea’s industrialization and owed much to the development of roads. In 1958, it had only 812 km of paved roads. Today, modern highways and roads crisscross the entire country.