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A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 24, 2014, on page SR5 of the New York edition with the headline: Large Dams Just Aren’t Worth the Cost. It is available online here. An aerial view of the Kariba Dam between Zambia and Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, circa 1965. Paul Popper/Popperfoto — Getty Images Thayer Scudder, the world’s leading authority on the impact of dams on poor people, has changed his mind about dams. A frequent consultant on large dam projects, Mr. Scudder held out hope through most of his 58-year career that the poverty relief delivered by a properly constructed

在自由奔流的怒江上兴建水电站的计划一直存在争议，但是这一计划近来却悄然得以推进。 在上周发布的一项在7月份做出的决定中，一家公司称一项在西藏怒江建水电站计划的预可行性研究报告通过了专家审查。这则还在《中国能源报》官方网站能源网上发布的公告称，水电水利规划设计总院、西藏自治区发改委和相关组织组成的专家组认为，报告基本满足本阶段勘测设计内容和工作深度的要求。 但环保主义者称，怒江是中国最大

When the livelihoods of 20 million of your citizens living in the Mekong River delta are threatened, along with 27 per cent of your GDP, 90 per cent of your rice exports and 60 per cent of your seafood exports, what do you do, especially when the sources of that threat, the governments of Laos and Thailand, don't appear to be listening to your objections?

Brian Richter is a water expert with decades of global field experience, a passion for rivers, and a scientist’s approach to problem solving. His new book Chasing Water (Island Press) takes a hard look at what we need to do to improve water management in a time of dwindling resources. The following excerpt lays out some key principals for getting us there. Hundreds of books and thousands of technical papers have been written on the subject of water management, and yet so many communities continue to crash into the wall of scarcity. We urgently need to design, experiment with, and give life

On February 4, blackouts swept across some of Brazil’s most populated areas, hitting nearly six million consumers and industrial users. While the energy ministry said the power outages were the result of short circuits in a transmission line, they came at a time of record drought and heat, raising fears that more blackouts could be on Brazil’s horizon.

Less than a year after a furious Himalayan flood claimed thousands of lives and destroyed numerous houses, roads and other infrastructure in the Alaknanda river valley, an expert body has concluded that hydropower projects exacerbated damages.

It’s a rare occasion when the president of a small Central American country tries to get a U.S. Senate aide fired. But Guatemala’s Otto Pérez Molina is not having the typical term. Pérez Molina presided last year over the sharpest escalation in targeted attacks on human rights defenders since Guatemala’s armed conflict ended in 1996.

Recorrer el río Marañón es toparse con una sucesión de paisajes irrepetibles y en riesgo debido a su potencial hidroeléctrico.

Full article published by Scientific Reports on April 17, 2014Status of logging concessions in the Peruvian Amazon The Peruvian Amazon is an important arena in global efforts to promote sustainable logging in the tropics. Despite recent efforts to achieve sustainability, such as provisions in the US–Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, illegal logging continues to plague the region. We present evidence that Peru's legal logging concession system is enabling the widespread illegal logging via the regulatory documents designed to ensure sustainable logging. Analyzing official government data, we f

While expedition paddler Rocky Contos is in the headlines for his discovery of the new source of the Amazon and guiding trips on Peru’s Grand Canyon-like Rio Marañón for the likes of blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer, he’s uncovered another reason to put Peru on kayakers’ radar: a newly discovered wealth of classic whitewater runs — all tributaries to the Marañón in the northern part of the country. The trove puts Peru on par with Chile and Ecuador as a classic kayaking destination.