Example IDAM analysis for hypothetic dam scenarios in Columbia River Basin (Brown et al. in review). Magnitude of impact is measured along the arc of each pie piece, while the subjective valuable of the impact is represented by the radius length of each impact. From this hypothetical example, a great disparity between overall costs and benefits is not evident, though the amoeba diagrams indicate that while a bulk of the costs (left) are imposed on biophysical and socio-economic elements of the study community, the benefits tend to be applied to socio-economic and geopolitical elements of the study community. These graphs, along with spatial mapping of the costs and benefits, can useful for evaluating hypotheses about distribution of dam impacts.
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Integrative Dam Assessment Modelling (IDAM) page under development |
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To meet the simultaneous demands for water, energy, and environmental protection well into the future, a broader view of dams is needed. We thus propose and apply a new tool for evaluating the relative costs and benefits of dam construction based on multi-objective planning techniques.
The Integrative Dam Assessment Modeling (IDAM) tool is designed to integrate biophysical, socio-economic, and geopolitical perspectives into a single cost/benefit analysis of dam construction. Each of 27 different impacts of dam construction is evaluated both objectively (e.g., flood protection, as measured by RYI years) and subjectively (i.e., the valuation of said flood protection) by a team of decision-makers. By providing a visual representation of the various costs and benefits associated with two or more dams, the IDAM tool allows decision-makers to evaluate alternatives and to articulate priorities associated with a dam project, making the decision process about dams more informed and more transparent. For all of these reasons, we believe that the IDAM tool represents an important evolutionary step in dam evaluation.
The objective for this second phase of the project is to develop data for and utilize the IDAM tool to investigate hypothesis regarding the assessment and distribution of hydropower impacts. This analysis includes two primary inquiries into the effects of dams on social and environmental dynamics. For the first inquiry, we propose to identify the drivers of conflict and change in large dam projects through an analysis of the post-dam community on the Mekong. This first inquiry includes event mapping as a chronosequence to identify causes or drivers of conflict and change /over time/. This analysis also includes a mapping of conflict and change hotspots to evaluate the extent to which dams modify social and environmental dynamics /over space/. By systematically documenting the causal processes in post-dam Mekong community, we seek to characterize how hydropower development interacts with human, social, and environmental dynamics on multiple organization and spatial levels. These analyses will allow us to develop and analyze hypotheses stemming from several key and timely questions regarding hydropower development as Agents of Change. Do geographical and cultural links to the river affect the degree of benefits or losses associated with dam construction based on organizational scales? What are the critical links between environmental and social welfare and dynamics? How does implementation of new legislation trickle down to observed change? Will relocation induce group-identity conflicts (e.g. ethnic clashes)? Will changes in local resource availability result in deprivation conflicts (e.g. civil strife and insurgency)?
The second inquiry asks which scenarios for building dams minimize loss of social and environmental quality on the Nu River? Do drivers identified in Mekong River basin also drive the most profound changes in the Nu River? Can these findings be extended to hydropower development in other areas of the world? Applying information gained from the first inquiry, we will utilize our general principles/rules for building socially and environmentally benign dams to simulate different dam building scenarios on the Nu River and evaluate the impact of those scenarios on the distribution of costs and benefits across the study area. This inquiry addresses a second set of fundamental questions regarding dams as agents of change, and leads to understanding and recommendation for informing future hydropower development and management. How does informing the stakeholders of impact magnitude influence their prioritization of the impacts? Which hydrodevelopment scenarios minimize impacts on rivers? How can environmental flows analyses be included in the hydropower development process? What scenarios allow the greatest potential for mitigating policies and environmental changes (e.g. climate variability) to result in a future different than that predicted by history-based scenarios?
proposed indicators
brown et al. manuscript
