Reservoir-Induced Seismicity

Originally published in The New York Times BEIJING - Nearly nine months after a devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, China, left 80,000 people dead or missing, a growing number of American and Chinese scientists are suggesting that the calamity was triggered by a four-year-old reservoir built close to the earthquake's geological fault line. A Columbia University scientist who studied the quake has said that it may have been triggered by the weight of 320 million tons of water in the Zipingpu Reservoir less than a mile from a well-known major fault. His conclusions, presented to the Ame

The Mozambican NGO, JA-Justica Ambiental released the following statement on the dam safety in Southern African region for the Day of Action for Rivers, Water and Life in 2006. As a developing country, Mozambique, and the whole Southern African region, has a growing demand for electricity. Given Mozambique’s hydroelectric potential, much interest has been shown in building more dams on some of the country’s large rivers. The project that has been most keenly examined is the Mphanda Nkuwa Dam, proposed for the lower Zambezi about midway between the City of Tete and the existing Cahora B

Earthquakes caused by the filling of a huge reservoir in the southern African country of Lesotho have terrified local people for more than a year. Houses in seven villages beside the reservoir of Katse Dam have been damaged by tremors, and in the village of Mapeleng, 11 houses were made uninhabitable by the quakes. In late January 1997, twelve families left Mapeleng, abandoning homes which were damaged more than a year ago by earthquakes. Tremors continue to strike the area, according to the World Bank, a project funder. Reservoir–induced seismicity (RIS) is a widely recognized bu