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Panel discussion debates the role of dams in Africa’s development

Six distinguished speakers came together on 24 November 2014 to tackle the much debated topic of ‘Africa, Dams and Development’ in a panel discussion organised by the Oxford Water Network and the Oxford Martin Programme on Resource Stewardship.

dams panel

Dr Rob Hope, Director of the Water Programme at the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment, chaired the event and asked the panellists, “how can dams better balance economic growth, environmental sustainability and human development in Africa?”

He pointed out that less than 10% of the hydroelectric power potential in Africa is developed. But there are major projects planned to change this, such as the Grand Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia, the High Grand Falls Dam in Kenya, Inga 3 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Kandadji in Niger.

David Grey, Visiting Professor of Water Policy at the School of Geography and the Environment, said that Africa is deeply water insecure, food insecure and energy insecure. The continent faces exceptionally high variability in water both between and within years, and storage is essential for coping with this ‘difficult hydrology’, he said.

Professor Grey argued that “of course Africa needs dams”, but good dams and not bad dams. He highlighted the importance of learning lessons from the 23,427 large dams that have been built worldwide, very few of which are in Africa.

Michael Norton, a civil engineer and Global Water Director at Amec Foster Wheeler said that he supported the construction of large dams in Africa in principle. “Storing water at times when it’s plentiful for times when it isn’t is an extremely effective and sustainable technique to meet mankind’s drinking, food and energy needs,” he said. However, he urged for all forms of storage, not just dams, to be considered in terms of their costs, risks and benefits.

“Dams are simply not worth the cost” was the message given by Dr Atif Ansar, Lecturer at the Blavatnik School of Government. He presented a study of 269 large dam projects across the world which showed excessive cost overruns. The analysis revealed that actual costs more than double for two out of ten dams, and triple for one out of ten dams.

The theme of costs was continued by Dr Judith Plummer who presented her research at Cambridge University on the cost of delays in dam construction. She said that the impact of delays can be devastating for countries that actually need the dams. She also emphasised that the benefits of dams are hugely underestimated as they are difficult to value.

Jamie Skinner, who leads the Water Team at the International Institute for Environment and Development, considered the impacts of dams on biodiversity and ecosystems and asked “who will stand up for the environment?” Where government priorities favour development over environment priorities, there may be more traction in promoting the maintenance of ecosystem services of value to people, he said.

According to Skinner, African countries consider the World Bank as a donor of last resort because of their stringent requirements for ecosystem sustainability, whereas finance from China demands very few, if any environmental safeguards.

Dr David Turton, a Senior Research Fellow at the African Studies Centre, concluded the panel presentations with a case study of the Gibe III Dam in Ethiopia, where the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in the lower Omo Basin will be affected by the dam.

“Dams must be made into development opportunities for the people that have to get out of the way to make them possible”, said Dr Turton. The principles for achieving this, he said, are widely accepted in theory but ignored in practice: open and transparent information sharing; meaningful consultation; and compensation, benefit sharing and livelihood reconstruction.

The presentation slides and video webcast are available online

Harry Verhoeven speaks about the water-food-energy nexus

Dr Harry Verhoeven was a speaker at the international conference on the water-food-energy nexus in drylands held in Rabat, Morocco on 11-14 June 2014. In a video interview, he highlights the politics behind how the nexus is defined and addressed.

The conference ‘Water-Food-Energy Nexus in Drylands: Bridging Science and Policy‘ gathered international experts to discuss the impacts of climate change and water scarcity and potential solutions in the fields of agriculture, water management, agro-business and energy. Speakers provided analyses and recommendations on how to address the interrelations between water, food and energy in global drylands, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.

Dr Harry Verhoeven gave a presentation on the nexus and the Nile. Using the example of Egypt, he argued that politically crafted interconnections between water scarcity, food production and energy security have been the foundation of modernist dreams, state-building projects and regime consolidation strategies for generations.

The conference was organised by the OCP Policy Center in partnership with the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), King’s College London and Texas A&M University.

Dr Harry Verhoeven teaches African Politics at the Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Oxford, and he is a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College. He is the Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network and the Oxford Central Africa Forum.

Water shortages could disrupt Britain’s electricity supply

The Guardian reports on a team of academics from Oxford and Newcastle who say nuclear and gas-fired power stations could be forced to shut down during future droughts.

The electricity sector uses large quantities of water for cooling processes in thermoelectric power stations, accounting for around half of all water abstractions in England and Wales. As water resources come under increasing pressures from growing populations and climate change, shortages could have serious impacts on the country’s electricity production, warns a new study co-authored by Professor Jim Hall, Director of the Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University.

“The high dependency on water in electricity generation means there is a real possibility that in just a few decades some power stations may be forced to decrease production or shut down if there are water shortages”, said Ed Byers in the Guardian article, a researcher at Newcastle University and lead author of the study.

The research, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, assesses the water demand of the government’s proposed energy ‘pathways’ to 2050. While some pathways present opportunities to both reduce water dependency and carbon emissions, others increase the dependence on water resources. For example, using fossil fuels with high levels of carbon capture and storage (CCS) could increase freshwater consumption by up to 70%.

The research shows that up to the 2030s, water use performance improves for all pathways, in line with rapid decarbonisation. This is achieved as renewable energy production expands while older coal, gas and nuclear plants are decommissioned and new and more affordable nuclear and carbon capture-equipped generation begins to take shape.

In the 2030s the water security of the UK could be in the balance as the water intensity of the different pathways diverges, warn the researchers. Coal and gas plants would be forced to shut down if they do not adopt CCS, yet if CCS and nuclear power are deployed on wider scales, water intensity will rapidly increase. Developers could be forced to choose between using limited freshwater supplies or increasing abstraction from tidal and sea water, both of which could be problematic for the environment.

The energy pathway with the highest level of renewables uses the least freshwater. Hybrid or air cooling comes at a slightly high cost and more emissions, but minimises water consumption and therefore could reduce dependency on scarce resources.

Read the Guardian article

Reference

Byers, E.A., Hall, J.W. and Amezaga, J.M. (2014) Electricity generation and cooling water use: UK pathways to 2050. Global Environmental Change. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.01.005

China in the Mekong: building dams for whose benefit?

A new policy brief from the Oxford University Global Economic Governance Programme discusses the controversies of Chinese investment in hydropower in the Mekong. It calls for action by governments and Chinese hydropower companies to ensure responsible water governance and safeguard livelihoods and biodiversity in the basin.

China is a “hydro-superpower”. How it harnesses the resources and energy potential of the international rivers flowing through its territory can have a significant – and at times, irreparable – impact not only on the complex ecosystems sustained by these rivers, but also on local communities both within and downstream of its borders. In mainland Southeast Asia, Chinese-led hydropower schemes are transforming the region’s landscapes and waterscapes. Designed to meet growing Chinese and regional power demands, these dams often become a “necessary evil”: necessary to national and regional development, but harmful to important rivers like the Mekong, Irrawaddy and Sesan, and the livelihoods that are tied to their natural ebbs and flows.

The policy brief make the following recommendations:

The Chinese government must enforce its domestic regulations for investments overseas and encourage Chinese firms to comply with indsutry standards.
Chinese hydropower companies must mainstream social and environmental impact assessments in the early stages of project development and engage directly with affected communites.
Governments in the Mekong basin should institutionalise participatory mechanisms in formal decision-making and provide public access to information on project development.

The policy brief is written by Dr Pichamon Yeophantong, Global Leaders Fellow currently based in the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.

Oxford University edits a themed issue of Philosophical Transactions A on Water Security, Risk and Society

Professors Jim Hall and David Grey, and Drs Dustin Garrick, Simon Dadson and Rob Hope, have organised and edited a landmark collection of papers, an outcome of the 2012 international conference Water Security, Risk and Society.

The papers demonstrate the growing scale of water security risks. For example, over 45% of the global population is projected to be exposed to water shortages for food production by 2050 (Falkenmark), and South American cities have experienced a doubling of risks associated with extreme rainfall from 1960-2000 (Vorosmarty). Modelling demonstrates that climate hazards are an impediment to economic growth (Brown).

The agenda-setting themed issue includes eight papers from Oxford University authors and engages multiple dimensions of water security, ranging from drinking water, food production and energy to climate risks, transboundary rivers and economic growth. Risk provides the basis for a unifying framework to bridge across multiple disciplines and science-policy divides.

Fifteen papers are organised in three sections to: frame the policy challenges and scientific responses to water security from a risk perspective; assess the evidence about the forces driving water insecurity; and examine responses to water insecurity at multiple scales.

Recognising the need for interdisciplinary science to respond to unprecedented water security challenges, the University of Oxford organised the international conference on Water Security, Risk and Society in April 2012. The conference convened 200 leading thinkers from science, policy and enterprise in 30 countries to take stock of the scientific evidence on water security risk and prioritise future interdisciplinary research.

Taken together, these papers provide strong justification and strategic priorities for policy-driven science in the lead up to new development goals in 2015 and beyond.

 

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

Theme Issue ‘Water security, risk and society’ compiled and edited by Jim Hall, David Grey, Dustin Garrick, Simon Dadson and Rob Hope

November 13, 2013; Vol. 371, No. 2002


Preface
Jim Hall, David Grey, Dustin Garrick, Simon Dadson, and Rob Hope

Opinion piece: Water security in one blue planet: twenty-first century policy challenges for science
David Grey, Dustin Garrick, Don Blackmore, Jerson Kelman, Mike Muller, and Claudia Sadoff

Opinion piece: Catalysing sustainable water security: role of science, innovation and partnerships
John Beddington

Opinion piece: The role of technology in achieving water security
Ian Thompson

Research article: Risk-based principles for defining and managing water security (open access)
Jim Hall and Edoardo Borgomeo

Research article: Extreme rainfall, vulnerability and risk: a continental-scale assessment for South America
Charles J. Vörösmarty, Lelys Bravo de Guenni, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Brian Pellerin, David Bjerklie, Manoel Cardoso, Cassiano D’Almeida, Pamela Green, and Lilybeth Colon

Research article: Growing water scarcity in agriculture: future challenge to global water security
Malin Falkenmark

Review article: Water security, global change and land–atmosphere feedbacks
Simon Dadson, Michael Acreman, and Richard Harding

Research article: A cost-effectiveness analysis of water security and water quality: impacts of climate and land-use change on the River Thames system
Paul Whitehead, Jill Crossman, Bedru Balana, Martyn Futter, Sean Comber, Li Jin, Dimitris Skuras, Andrew Wade, Mike Bowes, and Daniel Read

Research article: Water security in the Canadian Prairies: science and management challenges
Howard Wheater and Patricia Gober

Review article: Domestic water and sanitation as water security: monitoring, concepts and strategy (open access)
David J. Bradley and Jamie K. Bartram

Review article: Risks and responses to universal drinking water security
Robert Hope and Michael Rouse

Research article: The politics of African energy development: Ethiopia’s hydro-agricultural state-building strategy and clashing paradigms of water security
Harry Verhoeven

Research article: The governance dimensions of water security: a review
Karen Bakker and Cynthia Morinville

Research article: Managing hydroclimatic risks in federal rivers: a diagnostic assessment
Dustin Garrick, Lucia De Stefano, Fai Fung, Jamie Pittock, Edella Schlager, Mark New, and Daniel Connell

Research article: Is water security necessary? An empirical analysis of the effects of climate hazards on national-level economic growth
Casey Brown, Robyn Meeks, Yonas Ghile, and Kenneth Hunu

Dr Rene Bañares-Alcántara develops new optimisation model for analysis and evaluation of water policies

Rene Bañares-Alcántara and Aidid Chee Tahi from Oxford University’s Department of Engineering Science have developed a new modelling system which can help policymakers evaluate water policies. The modelling system was presented at the 2012 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Meeting.

Rene Bañares-Alcántara presented the paper ‘A semantic representation of policy goals in the modeling of electricity generation and water treatment systems’ at the AIChE Annual Meeting on Monday 29 October in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The event is an educational forum for chemical engineers interested in innovation and professional growth, and aims to promote ‘cleaner energy, stronger economy, and better living’.

The paper introduces a modelling system which can be used for the analysis and evaluation of water policies, including those aimed at ensuring water supply security and sustainability.

Optimisation models are useful tools for policymakers because they allow different scenarios to be evaluated during the formulation of energy and water policies. Existing models are based solely on mathematical equations that process numerical data, and policy goals set by the policymaker must first be translated into mathematical information that can be input into the model. However, a complete consideration of energy and water policies also requires evaluating non-numerical data, such as social and political issues.

The model proposed in Rene’s paper breaks new ground by considering both numerical and non-numerical information. It supports policymakers by converting their policy goals into information usable by the optimisation model. A prototype water modelling system was developed and applied to a case study of the state of Penang in Malaysia. A water model was created automatically from a set of water policy goals, and then optimised to generate a water treatment and supply system.

The full extended abstract is available from the event website

Dr Rene Bañares-Alcántara is a Reader in Engineering Science and leads the Systems Engineering Group at the Department of Engineering Science.

Photo credit: AIChE

Dr Harry Verhoeven finalist of the Global Water Forum’s Emerging Scholars Award

Dr Harry Verhoeven was selected as one of ten finalists in the Global Water Forum’s Emerging Scholars Award, judged from around 800 entries on the themes of ‘water security’, ‘water economics’, and ‘transboundary water governance’.  The Award called for early-career scholars and practitioners working in water-related fields to publish an article that presents their research, project, or opinion to a global audience. The articles were judged by water researchers from the Australian National University.

Harry’s article ‘Big is beautiful: Megadams, African water security, and China’s role in the new global political economy’ looks at the role of dams in development and energy production at a global scale. It argues that the increasing reliance on megadams to fuel development and secure energy, led by China, fails to take into account their ecological impacts. He concludes that while large dams may be alluring to Chinese investors and African regimes, “their long-term contribution to water security in the climate change era remains deeply questionable”.

You can read Harry’s article, as well as the other finalists’ entries on the Global Water Forum’s website.

Harry Verhoeven is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Politics and International Relations, teaches African Politics, and is the Convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network.

 

Water scarcity to drive conflict, hit food and energy, experts say

Reuters AlertNet, Laurie Goering, 17/04/2012

Water is increasingly becoming a scarce resource and shortages could drive conflict, hit food and energy production, and threaten growth in renewable energy technology, experts warned at a water security conference on Monday.

And climate change – which appears to be bringing more extreme weather events such as droughts and floods – is likely to make the situation even more difficult, they said.

Article includes quotes from David Grey, a University of Oxford water expert; Ian Walmsley, pro-vice chancellor for research at the University of Oxford; and Jim Hall, an expert on water and risk at the Oxford Environmental Change Institute.

Events

ONE Super-Year for Nature

Monday, 12 October 2020

16:30-18:00 BST

Want to learn more about the Oxford Water Network and the other networks that make up the Oxford Networks for the Environment (ONE)? ONE facilitates connections between all Oxford researchers working on environmental research in biodiversity, climate, energy, food and water. The networks exchange knowledge and expertise, enabling Oxford University to be ‘greater than the sum of its parts’, capable of tackling the most complex environmental challenges. As we prepare for the COP26, and in what is set to be a ‘super-year’ for nature, climate, humans and planet earth, understanding how we make use of our natural resources sustainably is of critical importance.

This event is open to University of Oxford Doctoral Training Students (DTPs), undergraduate students, post-graduate students, researchers and staff to a Super Year for Nature discussion, to raise awareness of the issues, and understand how Oxford is responding. This event is for you if you are interested in broadening your knowledge on the complex and converging challenges of biodiversity, climate, energy, food and water.

Event Details

Presentations from

  • Jim Hall – Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks at the School of Geography and the Environment and Convener of the ONE network
  • Harriet Waters – Head of Environmental Sustainability, Estates Department, University of Oxford
  • Nathan Lawson – President, Oxford Climate Society, (Geography BA), Jesus College
  • Siobhan Dhir – Vice President, Oxford Climate Society, (Materials DPhil), St Catherine’s College
  • ONE Network Coordinators for Water, Food, Biodiversity, Climate and Energy

And closing with Open Mic/Q&A time.