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From December 2010 World Rivers Review Since World Rivers Review last took stock of Chinese dam builders in 2007, China has emerged as the world leader in the international hydropower industry. The number of overseas Chinese dam projects that we are aware of has increased from 46 to 266. Chinese overseas dam builders are now active in 65 countries. Developing countries have welcomed Chinese dam builders and the loans offered by Chinese banks. While all these new dams don't bode well for the world's rivers, some potentially positive trends are emerging. Just a few years ago, Chinese companie

From December 2010 World Rivers Review Indian companies and state-owned enterprises have rapidly expanded their domestic and overseas investments in recent years. Not least motivated by the example of Chinese investors, they are trying to gain access to foreign resources, win international contracts, and strengthen their relations with trading blocks such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). They have long had a presence in neighboring countries such as Nepal and Bhutan, and are now also spreading to more distant countries in Asia and Africa. This article looks at the tra

From December 2010 World Rivers Review More than a billion people spread across 54 countries inhabit Africa, the world's second largest continent. International Rivers is tracking nearly 150 proposed large dams across those 54 countries. People from Kenya to Ghana, from Sudan to Zambia, from Uganda to Lesotho are under threat from dam building. Yet the immediate threat facing African rivers – including its biggest, such as the Congo, Nile, Niger and Zambezi – is relatively small compared to other basins, such as the Mekong. The limited number of dams is due to the same factors that thr

From December 2010 World Rivers Review "We're going to build all the dams we possibly can in the Amazon, given the current legislation, and then we're going to revisit the other potential sites that involve impacts on indigenous lands and protected areas, and see how we may exploit that hydroelectric potential as well. Brazil's energy future is in the Amazon." This statement by the head of energy planning at the federal Ministry of Mines and Energy makes it clear that the dam-building business in Brazil is booming. Two huge hydroelectric dams on the Madeira River, the largest tributary of t

From December 2010 World Rivers Review The Mekong region is at a crossroads. A ground-breaking new report urging a 10-year dam-building freeze on the Mekong River mainstream has raised the profile of the risks of a dam- boom on the highly productive and valuable river, while also putting a spotlight on the decision-makers who will determine its fate. The debate is noticeably shifting away from strict belief that dams are the best way to serve regional energy needs, and toward increased recognition of the value of a healthy river that supports millions with its natural abundance. The site of

From September 2010 World Rivers Review Activists Step Up Campaign to Stop River-Killing ProjectActivists protest the 4-Rivers Project at the South Han River Park Jong-hak/KFEM Since we last reported on South Korea's massive 4-Rivers diversion project (WRR, Sept. 2009), a great deal has happened and the battle to stop the project has intensified. The project continues to be severely criticized by well-qualified scientists, environmentalists, and citizens in Korea and abroad. A lawsuit was filed in November 2009 by academics, 10,000 citizens, and 420 citizen's groups, reflecting the depth of

From September 2010 World Rivers Review When it comes to water, the past is no longer a reliable guide to the future Water, like energy, is essential to virtually every human endeavor. The growing number of water shortages around the world and the possibility of these shortages leading to economic disruption, food crises, social tensions, and even war suggest that the challenges posed by water in the coming decades will rival those posed by declining oil supplies. In fact, our water problem turns out to be much more worrisome than our energy situation, for three main reasons. First, unlike o

From September 2010 World Rivers Review The catastrophic flooding in Pakistan provides a terrifying warning of how global warming is changing the hydrological cycle. Almost every month seems to bring unprecedented rainstorms and floods somewhere across the world, and their severity and frequency seems to be rapidly worsening. These floods pose a major threat to the world's dams, and to the many millions of people who live below them. Here we report on a few of the worst examples of dam-induced flooding in recent months. Brazil Northeast Brazil - better known for severe drought - was hit by d

From September 2010 World Rivers Review Dr. Margaret Palmer Rivers are the planet's lifelines, but the double threat of human interventions combined with climate change is already seriously compromising their health – and, by extension, ours. A major study last year found an overall decline in total discharge of most of the world's major rivers – changes that could affect up to a billion people. Here we interview Dr. Margaret Palmer, director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland and a leading expert on how climate change impacts rivers. What are your bi

Affected people with their houses plunged under the flood waters Shahid Ali Panhwer Only a few days ago, in the wake of the severe deluge upstream of Kotri Barrage, children swimming and women sponging down clothes on a partially dry passage of the Indus River (Sindhu Daryah) downstream, close to Sehrish Nagar embankment, doled out the delusion that the flood, which had flattened the upper parts of the country and engulfed vast stretches of the province's upstream areas, inflicting huge losses in terms of life and property, was centuries away from their lands. They used to live in a squatter