Water

Dams and Development E-Paper Contents

p. 28 of 74 BACK | NEXT Home Page of Dams and Development Foreword I. Why an e-paper on dams and development? II. Assessing options III. Participatory processes IV. Social impacts V. Environmental impacts Strategic environmental assessment International environmental conventions Environmental flows Cumulative impacts Cultural assessments Health assessments Greenhouse gas emissions Mitigation measures Hydropower industry's approach What do ADB policies say? VI. Benefit distribution VII. Dam safety and sustainability VIII. Existing projects IX. Improving governance X. What other organizations say XI. ADB, Dams, and Development XII. References Contact Us

Environmental impacts - avoid, minimize,mitigate

Understanding the nature and scale of environmental impacts early in the planning process is fundamental to devising alternative plans to avoid, minimize or effectively mitigate the consequences.

This raises an immediate challenge - how to obtain the level of information required when plans and financing arrangements are at a conceptual or preliminary stage of planning? Significant advances have been made recently in the field of Strategic Environmental Assessment.

Diversity is also a major challenge in assessing potential impacts, with no two dam sites the same. This is particularly the case for some of the emerging techniques in environmental assessment and management such as environmental flows and cumulative impact assessments.

Significant levels of uncertainty surround environmental mitigation measures due to the complexity of inter-relationships between changes in terrestrial and aquatic habitats and the species that depend upon them, the lack of data, and the difficulties inherent in prediction. The site specific nature of impacts from dam projects often means that transferring mitigation technology from one region to another has severe limitations.

For initial information on these and other emerging issues, including improving our understanding of the linkages between aquatic ecosystems and people's livelihoods and the difficulties in preserving key fish species, see:

• How can problems be identified earlier? - Strategic environmental assessment
• Dams within the framework of international environmental conventions
• Using environmental flows to meet ecosystem needs
• Assessing cumulative impacts - taking a basin perspective
• Incorporating cultural and health assessments
• Greenhouse gas emissions from reservoirs - what is the debate about?
• Some examples of mitigation measures
• The hydropower industry's approach to the environment and sustainability
• What do ADB policies say?

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