A new article in the journal, Energy Policy has unleashed some strong reactions about dams. “Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development,” by A. Ansar et al (click for article, 1.6MB) cites their high economic costs and frequent cost overruns to suggest an answer of “Probably not”.
A response was quickly issued by the ICOLD (Int’l Commission on Large Dams) president, Adama Nombre, under the title, “Yes, we need to build more large dams for water storage and energy for sustainable development!” For support, he cites the World Declaration on “Water Storage for Sustainable Development” which includes the claim that dams can actually be good for rivers by providing water during droughts.
A different kind of response has been prepared by the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems, by asking several well-known water experts how they would answer the question of building more large dams. Click here for comments from Jeremy Bird, Director-General of IWMI; Fred Pearce, science writer, and others.