Report

The 1995 Mekong Agreement is the framework that Southeast Asian governments use to decide whether the build dams on the Mekong River, but it remains poorly understood. Construction is now underway on the controversial Xayaburi Hydropower Project, the first mainstream dam proposed for the Lower Mekong River. The process has not gone smoothly. Construction activities began almost two years before the official announcement. Vietnam and Cambodia called for a delay in construction because concerns over the dam’s transboundary impacts remained unresolved. Laos never conducted a comprehensive analy

East Africa's “Aral Sea” in the Making?“If Ethiopia completes the Gibe III Dam and continues to press ahead with large-scale irrigation developments, the result will be a cascade of hydrological, ecological and socio-economic impacts that will generate a region-wide crisis for indigenous livelihoods and biodiversity and thoroughly destabilize the Ethiopia-Kenyan borderlands around Lake Turkana. The long-term effect could parallel what has happened to Central Asia’s Aral Sea, one of the planet’s worst environmental disasters.” So begins a paper that describes how hydrological change

แผนพัฒนากำลังการผลิตไฟฟ้า (Power Development Plan-พีดีพี) ของประเทศไทยเป็นแผนแม่บทสำหรับการลงทุนพัฒนากำลังการผลิตไฟฟ้าในประเทศ ซึ่งจัดทำโดยการไฟฟ้าฝ่ายผลิตแห่งประเทศไทย (กฟผ.) สะท้อนให้เห็นถึงกระบวนการวางแผนที่เป็นปัญหาถึ

In order to better understand the challenges confronting the 3S Rivers region’s natural resources and its people, this report from International Rivers and the 3S Rivers Protection Network provides information on the policies, agendas and various actors playing a role in hydropower development in the Sesan, Srepok and Sekong (3S) river basins in Cambodia, Vietnam and Lao PDR. International Rivers and the 3S Rivers Protection Network hopes that this report will help fill information gaps and promote discussion amongst stakeholders about the future of the 3S Rivers and the people who depe

Even during the early stages of construction on the Xayaburi Dam, food insecurity is growing as communities lose access to the Mekong River resources on which they depend.

An in-depth study of the hydrological risks to hydropower dams on the Zambezi River gives an early warning about what Southern Africa could be facing as it contemplates plans for more large hydropower dams in a time of climate change.

In a new report, we survey Norway’s diverse forms of support for the global hydropower sector, and examine some of its surrounding controversies.

Each year, international institutions such as the World Bank and United Nations invest in activities that contribute to broader goals — such as economic growth, food production, or greenhouse gas emission reductions — but that carry significant environmental and social risks. To reduce these risks, many international institutions have adopted policies called “safeguards” to help ensure that their investments do not have unintended consequences on people and ecosystems. This paper reviews the history of safeguards and changing trends in the way that international institutions apply them

The purpose of this study is to critically examine the government’s electricity development plans and to determine if there is a more sustainable and economically efficient solution to meet the country’s future electricity needs.

This publication presents the results of a joint effort undertaken by a group of researchers and socio-environmental NGOs aimed at promoting critical analysis and proposals for new public policies to meet the challenges of Brazil’s electrical energy sector in the 21st century.