Clean energy and water conflicts: Contested narratives of small hydropower in Mexico’s Sierra Madre Oriental

Noah Silber-Coats
School of Geography and Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA nsilbercoats@email.arizona.edu

ABSTRACT: Small hydropower is poised to undergo a global boom, potentially accounting for as much as 75% of new hydroelectric installations over the next two decades. There are extensive bodies of literature arguing both that small hydropower is an environmentally benign technology benefitting rural communities, and, conversely, that unchecked small hydro development is a potential environmental calamity with dire consequences for rivers and those who depend upon them. Despite this debate, few studies have considered the ways in which small hydropower is socially constructed in the sites targeted for its development.This paper focuses on the Bobos-Nautla River Basin, in the Sierra Madre Oriental of Mexico, where numerous small hydropower projects are planned. The central argument is that the dominant framing of small hydropower in Mexico focuses on claimed benefits of 'clean' energy, sidelining any consideration of impacts on water resources and local environments. However, even if this narrative has dominated policy-making, it is being actively contested by a social movement that constructs these projects as water theft.The narratives surrounding small hydropower are reconstructed from interviews with government officials, activists, NGO workers and residents of communities near project sites conducted during ten weeks of fieldwork in 2014. The results of this fieldwork are contextualised by an overview of evolving trends in hydropower governance globally that situates the boom in small hydro within shifting relationships between states, international financial institutions, and private finance, as well as an historical account of the evolution of hydropower governance in Mexico that speaks to long-standing conflicts over water use for hydroelectric generation.

KEYWORDS: Hydropower, institutions, governance, environmental politics, Mexico

The impact of 'zero' coming into fashion: Zero liquid discharge uptake and socio-technical transitions in Tirupur

Jenny Grönwall
Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), Stockholm, Sweden jenny.gronwall@siwi.org

Anna C. Jonsson
Division of Environmental Change, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden anna.c.jonsson@liu.se

ABSTRACT: The textile industry is one of the major industrial polluters, and water recycling is yet far from being standard practice. Wastewater generation remains a serious and growing problem, affecting ecosystems, human health and freshwater availability for other uses. India is the world’s third largest exporter of textiles and the sector directly employs 45 million people. This case study explores the socio-technical transition of Tirupur, a textile cluster dubbed as the first in India to shift to 'zero liquid discharge' (ZLD) in a systematic manner. It traces a path towards increased environmental sustainability that takes off in a time characterised by no effluent treatment, to the advanced approach to wastewater handling that was the norm in 2016. By adding a multi-scalar perspective, light is shed on where the system changes emerged that inspired key actors during various phases of the defining 35 years.
The process towards ZLD becoming best practice involves conflicts, adaptation, resistance, and vast socioeconomic losses. Eventually, innovative ideas and artefacts replaced old practices, and effluent discharge has become a symbol of noncompliance. Farmers’ movements, authority directions and court orders drove the development, which came to inform a policy shift to mainstream water recovery in the textiles industry.

KEYWORDS: Zero liquid discharge, sustainable textiles, water recycling, wastewater treatment, Tirupur, India

Crafting adaptive capacity: institutional bricolage in adaptation to urban flooding in greater Accra

Fanny Frick-Trzebitzky
Geography Department, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin; Germany; IRI THESys, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Department of Geography, King’s College London, UK fanny.frick.1@hu-berlin.de

ABSTRACT: Institutional bricolage, which explains how institutions are actively crafted across different degrees of formality, and urban adaptation have been studied separately in the past. Linking critical institutionalism and adaptive capacity research, this article describes how institutional bricolage shapes the distribution of adaptive capacity in adaptation to urban flooding. The Densu delta in Greater Accra, Ghana, is taken as a case of a rapidly urbanising area in coastal West-Africa. Interviews and stakeholder mappings show that institutional bricolage shapes who is likely to adapt to urban flooding and who isn’t, as well as where people are likely to adapt and where they are not. Interviews moreover provided evidence of the distribution of adaptive capacity in dynamic water governance contexts that are characteristic of urban areas particularly in Africa. The role of the traditional 'chief' is shown to be a dynamic institution that can contribute to or hinder adaptation to urban flooding, depending on his own world views and institutional context. Four new findings emerge. Firstly, key elements of bricolage foster the decisive role of chieftaincy structures in adaptation to urban flooding in the local context of a West-African city. Secondly, institutional bricolage exposes the role of culture in adaptive capacity. Thirdly, applying institutional bricolage in the setting of a rapidly urbanizing flood-prone area offers new perspectives on both institutions and adaptation in urban water and risk governance. Fourthly, a bricolage analysis enables incorporating different forms of knowledge towards transformative adaptation.

KEYWORDS: Flood, transformative adaptation, critical institutionalism, urban water, African cities

The techno-politics of big infrastructure and the Chinese water machine

Britt Crow-Miller
School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA bcm@asu.edu

Michael Webber
School of Geography, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia mjwebber@unimelb.edu.au

Sarah Rogers
Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, The University of Melbourne, Sidney Myer Asia Centre, Melbourne, VIC, Australia rogerssm@unimelb.edu.au

ABSTRACT: Despite widespread recognition of the problems caused by relying on engineering approaches to water management issues, since 2000 China has raised its commitment to a concrete-heavy approach to water management. While, historically, China’s embrace of modernist water management could be understood as part of a broader set of ideas about controlling nature, in the post-reform era this philosophical view has merged with a technocratic vision of national development. In the past two decades, a Chinese Water Machine has coalesced: the institutional embodiment of China’s commitment to large infrastructure. The technocratic vision of the political and economic elite at the helm of this Machine has been manifest in the form of some of the world’s largest water infrastructure projects, including the Three Gorges Dam and the South-North Water Transfer Project, and in the exporting of China’s vision of concrete-heavy development beyond its own borders. This paper argues that China’s approach to water management is best described as a techno-political regime that extends well beyond infrastructure, and is fundamentally shaped by both past choices and current political-economic conditions. Emerging from this regime, the Chinese Water Machine is one of the forces driving the (re)turn to big water infrastructure globally.

KEYWORDS: Water development, infrastructure, techno-politics, South-North Transfer, China

Understanding the allure of big infrastructure: Jakarta’s Great Garuda Sea Wall Project

Emma Colven
Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA emmacolven@ucla.edu

ABSTRACT: In response to severe flooding in Jakarta, a consortium of Dutch firms in collaboration with the Indonesian government has designed the 'Great Garuda Sea Wall' project. The master plan proposes to construct a sea wall to enclose Jakarta Bay. A new waterfront city will be built on over 1000 hectares (ha) of reclaimed land in the shape of the Garuda, Indonesia’s national symbol. By redeveloping North Jakarta, the project promises to realise the world-class city aspirations of Indonesia’s political elites. Heavily reliant on hydrological engineering, hard infrastructure and private capital, the project has been presented by proponents as the optimum way to protect the city from flooding. The project retains its allure among political elites despite not directly addressing land subsidence, understood to be a primary cause of flooding. I demonstrate how this project is driven by a techno-political network that brings together political and economic interests, world-class city discourses, engineering expertise, colonial histories, and postcolonial relations between Jakarta and the Netherlands. Due in part to this network, big infrastructure has long constituted the preferred state response to flooding in Jakarta. I thus make a case for provincialising narratives that claim we are witnessing a return to big infrastructure in water management.

KEYWORDS: Flood mitigation, Global South, infrastructure, hydrological engineering, urban flooding, Indonesia

The anti-flood detention basin projects in northern Italy. New wine in old bottles?

Giorgio Osti
Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy giorgio.osti@dispes.units.it

ABSTRACT: An increased number of floods have affected the thick urban network located in Northern Italy. The towns traversed by the many rivers descending from the Alps and Apennines must address the problem of retarding water overflow. Detention basins have been envisaged as a good means to achieve more secure protection against floods for thick urban settings.
In Italy, flood prevention policies have been partially decentralized to regions. In this study, the literature on political economy, policy analysis and governance is used to frame the planning and implementation of detention basins. Each approach raises questions on whether and how detention basins represent a return to hard water infrastructures. Three ongoing detention basin projects located in northern Italy have been chosen to illustrate the coalition of interests that support this policy of flood prevention. The selection of cases and their analysis are based on a comparative method considering both similarities and differences between detention basins.
Although governance is highlighted in official documents regarding water policies, this approach has been followed to a very limited extent. The traditional policy community has been able to maintain leadership on projects, including a limited amount of new disciplines and expertise. Moreover, the emphasis on planning expertise creates some space for the governmentality approach. Overall, detention basins represent not a return to heavy infrastructures, but a continuation of traditional intervention methods with small greening changes. However, margins for a softer policy are possible through either recovering old containers/floodplains or developing a network of farm ponds and minor dikes.

KEYWORDS: Flood prevention, detention basin, policy community, governance, Italian Regions

On the need for system alignment in large water infrastructure: Understanding infrastructure dynamics in Nairobi, Kenya

Pär Blomkvist
Department for Industrial Economics and Management, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden par.blomkvist@indek.kth.se

David Nilsson
Department for Philosophy and History, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden david.nilsson@abe.kth.se

ABSTRACT: In this article we contribute to the discussion of infrastructural change in Africa, and explore how a new theoretical perspective may offer a different, more comprehensive and historically informed understanding of the trend towards large water infrastructure in Africa. We examine the socio-technical dynamics of large water infrastructures in Nairobi, Kenya, in a longer historical perspective using two concepts that we call intra-systemic alignment and inter-level alignment. Our theoretical perspective is inspired by Large Technical Systems (LTS) and Multi-Level Perspective (MLP). While inter-level alignment focuses on the process of aligning the technological system at the three levels of niche, regime and landscape, intra-systemic alignment deals with how components within the regime are harmonised and standardised to fit with each other. We pay special attention to intra-systemic alignment between the supply side and the demand side, or as we put it, upstream and downstream components of a system. In narrating the history of water supply in Nairobi, we look at both the upstream (large-scale supply) and downstream activities (distribution and payment), and compare the Nairobi case with European history of large infrastructures. We emphasise that regime actors in Nairobi have dealt with the issues of alignment mainly to facilitate and expand upstream activities, while concerning downstream activities they have remained incapable of expanding service and thus integrating the large segment of low-income consumers. We conclude that the present surge of large-scale water investment in Nairobi is the result of sector reforms that enabled the return to a long tradition – a 'Nairobi style' – of upstream investment mainly benefitting the high-income earners. Our proposition is that much more attention needs to be directed at inter-level alignment at the downstream end of the system, to allow the creation of niches aligned to the regime.

KEYWORDS: Water development, infrastructure, developing countries, development policy, Large Technical Systems (LTS), Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), Kenya

State transformation and policy networks: The challenging implementation of new water policy paradigms in post-apartheid South Africa

Magalie Bourblanc
Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD), UMR G-Eau, Montpellier, France; and GovInn, Department of Political Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa magalie.bourblanc@cirad.fr

ABSTRACT: For many years, South Africa had represented a typical example of a hydrocracy. Following the democratic transition in South Africa, however, new policy paradigms emerged, supported by new political elites from the ANC. A reform of the water policy was one of the priorities of the new Government, but with little experience in water management, they largely relied on 'international best practices' in the water sector, although some of these international principles did not perfectly fit the South African water sector landscape. In parallel, a reform called 'transformation' took place across all public organisations with the aim of allowing public administrations to better reflect the racial components in South African society. As a result, civil engineers lost most of their power within the Department of Water Affairs and Sanitation (DWS). However, despite these changes, demand-side management has had difficulties in materializing on the ground. The paper aims at discussing the resilience of supply-side management within the Ministry, despite its new policy orientation. Using a policy network concept, the paper shows that the supply-side approach still prevails today, due to the outsourcing of most DWS tasks to consulting firms with whom DWS engineers have nourished a privileged relationship since the 1980s. The article uses the decision-making process around the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) Phase 2 as an emblematic case study to illustrate such developments. This policy network, which has enjoyed so much influence over DWS policies and daily activities, is now being contested. As a consequence, we argue that the fate of the LHWP Phase 2 is ultimately linked to a competition between this policy network and a political one.

KEYWORDS: Policy network, State transformation, water demand management, hydraulic mission, South Africa

Old wine in new bottles: The adaptive capacity of the hydraulic mission in Ecuador

Jeroen F. Warner
Sociology of Development and Change Group, Wageningen University jeroen.warner@wur.nl

Jaime Hoogesteger
Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University jaime.hoogesteger@wur.nl

Juan Pablo Hidalgo
Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation (CEDLA), University of Amsterdam juanhidalgo_b@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT: Despite a widely embraced ecological turn and strident critique of megastructures in the 1990s, construction of large infrastructure has been reignited worldwide. While Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and River Basin Management (RBM) have at least discursively held sway as the dominant paradigm in water management since the late 1990s, we argue that the 'hydraulic mission' never really went away and has in some places energetically re-emerged. The development discourse that justified many dams in the past is now supplemented by a new set of appealing justifiers. With the help of the case of Ecuador we show that the hegemonic project of the hydraulic mission has a great discursive adaptive capacity and a new set of allies. The rise of the BRICS (especially China), South-South cooperation and private investors provides non-traditional sources of funding, making the construction of hydraulic infrastructure less dependent on Western conditionalities. The resulting governance picture highlights the disconnect between the still widely embraced policy discourse of IWRM/RBM and the drivers and practices of the hydraulic mission; questioning what value international calls for 'good water governance' have in the midst of new discourses, broader transnational political projects and the powerful dam-building alliances that underlie them.

KEYWORDS: Hydraulic mission, hydropower dams, buen vivir/sumak kawsay, Ecuador

Water management in Mexico. From concrete-heavy persistence to community-based resistance

Cindy McCulligh
Centre for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico cindymcculligh@gmail.com

Darcy Tetreault
Department of Development Studies, Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Zacatecas; Mexico darcytetreault@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: According to Mexico’s National Water Commission (CONAGUA), after dominating for 50 years, supply-side policies were replaced by demand management in the 1980s, and this focus has been superseded by 'sustainability'-oriented policies since the turn of the century, combined with greater participation in decision-making. Despite a discursive turn to demand management and a recognition of increasing environmental degradation, in this article we argue that a focus on 'concrete-heavy' projects persists, with increased private-sector participation and facing increased resistance from local communities. From the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, dam construction flourished in Mexico, not only for irrigation but increasingly for hydroelectricity and urban water supply. Since the adoption of neoliberal economic policies, from the late 1980s onward, public investment in hydraulic infrastructure has decreased but we argue that the water management model has not shifted significantly in terms of its penchant for building large dams. We review socio-environmental conflicts resulting from hydraulic infrastructure projects since the turn of the century, and analyse in greater detail the case of the Zapotillo Dam in Jalisco. We argue that these conflicts highlight the reluctance of government water authorities to shift away from water management centred on supply through large infrastructure projects, and linked to ideas of progress and development. These conflicts also highlight the increasing dissonance between official state discourse, with its stress on ecological sustainability and political participation, and the actual orientation of water policies and projects.

KEYWORDS: Water management, dams, socio-environmental conflicts, Mexico

Dam removals and river restoration in international perspective

Chris S. Sneddon
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA; cssneddon@dartmouth.edu

Regis Barraud
University of Poitiers, RURALITES Research Team (EA 2552), Poitiers, France; regis.barraud@univ-poitiers.fr

Marie-Anne Germaine
Paris Nanterre University, Laboratoire LAVUE UMR 7218 CNRS, Nanterre, France; marie-anne.germaine@parisnanterre.fr

ABSTRACT: In the Anthropocene era, questions over institutions, economics, culture and politics are central to the promotion of water-society relations that enhance biophysical resilience and democratic modes of environmental governance. The removal of dams and weirs from river systems may well signal an important shift in how human actors value and utilize rivers. Yet the removal of water infrastructure is often lengthy, institutionally complex, and characterized by social conflict. This Special Issues draws insights from case studies of recent efforts in North America and Europe to restore river systems through dam and weir removal. These cases include both instances where removal has come to fruition in conjunction with efforts to rehabilitate aquatic systems and instances where removal has been stymied by a constellation of institutional, political and cultural factors. Drawing from diverse theoretical frames and methodological approaches, the papers presented here offer novel ways to conceptualize water-society relations using the lens of dam removal and river restoration, as well as crucial reminders of the multiple biophysical and social dimensions of restoration initiatives for water resource practitioners interested in the rehabilitation of socioecological systems.

KEYWORDS: Dam removal, weir removal, river restoration, case study, water-society relations

Competing ideas of 'natural' in a dam removal controversy

Dolly Jørgensen
University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway; dolly@jorgensenweb.net

ABSTRACT: In spite of general support for removal of dam structures within the ecological sciences community, local residents sometimes contest dam removals. This article examines the competing ideas of 'natural' and 'nature' that may surface in a dam removal controversy. Using the conflict of the Colliery dams of Nanaimo in northwestern Canada, the article explores how those who want the dam to stay and those who want it removed identify what is 'natural'. Through an examination of public documents, survey data, and social media, the article shows that what is 'natural' is constructed differently in epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic terms by those for and against the dam removal. Because the two sides differ in their idea of what 'nature' is, the conflicts may be difficult to resolve. This paper stresses the role of perceptions and values in environmental issues. Understanding the complex nature valuations is where the potential for truly interdisciplinary restoration projects becomes both evident and necessary.

KEYWORDS: Dam removal, ecological restoration, environmental politics, natural

On the political roles of freshwater science in studying dam and weir removal policies: A critical physical geography approach

Simon Dufour
Université Rennes 2 – CNRS UMR LETG, Rennes, France; simon.dufour@univ-rennes2.fr

Anne Julia Rollet
Université Rennes 2 – CNRS UMR LETG, Rennes, France; anne-julia.rollet@univ-rennes2.fr

Margot Chapuis
Université Côte d’Azur – CNRS UMR ESPACE, Nice, France; margot.chapuis@unice.fr

Mireille Provansal
CNRS UMR CEREGE – Université d'Aix Marseille, Aix en Provence, France; mireilleprovansal@wanadoo.fr

Romain Capanni
CNRS UMR CEREGE – Université d'Aix Marseille, Aix en Provence, France; romaincapanni@hotmail.fr

ABSTRACT: Over the last decade, dam and weir removal has been promoted to improve continuity along many river systems. However, such policies raise many socioecological issues such as social acceptability, integration of different river uses, and real impacts on river ecosystems. In this article, we illustrate how critical physical geography can help connect sociopolitical issues with biophysical processes. Our analysis is based on case studies located in different geographic contexts but in any case, a detailed understanding of biological or hydromorphological processes emphasises different social and political issues related to dam and weir removal. For example, riparian vegetation is usually ignored in dam-removal studies (unlike fish or macroinvertebrates) and its response to dam removal raises the issue of how different nonhuman actors are represented (or not) in the debate and weighed in the decision. An accurate understanding of sediment dynamics can also address the sociopolitical process because it identifies effective measures for reaching an objective such as the restoration of sediment fluxes. In our case studies, this understanding demonstrates that removal can be technically possible but ineffective or insufficient. From a sociopolitical perspective, this can increase the number of stakeholders (with diverse power relationships) that need to be included in the debate. We conclude that the diversity of sociopolitical issues associated with dam and weir removal is partially connected to the nature of biophysical processes and patterns and that neither aspect can be analysed separately.

KEYWORDS: Sediment transfer, riparian vegetation, dam removal, critical physical geography, France

IWRM discourses, institutional holy grail and water justice in Nepal

Floriane Clement
International Water Management Institute, Kathmandu office, Nepal; f.clement@cgiar.org

Diana Suhardiman
International Water Management Institute, Regional Office for Southeast Asia, Vientiane, Lao PDR; d.suhardiman@cgiar.org

Luna Bharati
International Water Management Institute; and Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn, Germany; l.bharati@cgiar.org

ABSTRACT: Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) still stands today as one of the most influential governance models in the water sector. Whereas previous analyses of IWRM have focused on the effectiveness of the institutional models it embodies and on policy implementation gaps, we examine the meanings that IWRM discourses have given to water management issues and how these meanings have in turn supported certain policy choices, institutions and practices. We use discourse analysis to study IWRM discourses in Nepal, where IWRM was introduced as the guiding policy principle for water management more than a decade ago, but not yet operationalised. We argue that IWRM discourses have operated a discursive closure in policy debates, thereby limiting the range of policy and institutional choices perceived as politically possible. In particular, we found that the promotion of IWRM as an institutional holy grail has obscured critical issues of social (in)justice related to water resources development by promoting an apolitical and techno-managerial vision of water development, largely centralised and relying on expert knowledge. We defend the need to move away from institutional panaceas and towards deliberative processes that allow alternative voices, discourses and knowledge.

KEYWORDS: IWRM, institutions, discourses, social justice, Nepal

An infrastructural event: Making sense of Panama’s drought

Ashley Carse
Department of Human and Organizational Development, Vanderbilt University, Peabody College, Nashville, TN; ashley.carse@vanderbilt.edu

ABSTRACT: Droughts are often characterised as meteorological events: periodic precipitation deficits associated with atmospheric disruption. However, the droughts that concern our societies are typically socioeconomic events: instances in which water demand approaches or exceeds a supply diminished due to low precipitation. This article analyses a 2015-16 drought in Panama, typically among the world’s rainiest countries, to argue that some droughts might also be usefully conceptualised as infrastructural events. This analytic complements research on climatic and socioeconomic dynamics by opening up lines of analysis that reorient some basic understandings of drought events. When, for example, does a drought begin and end? Where do droughts come from? Who and what are (in)visible in drought explanations and responses? The article is organised around three key dimensions of the infrastructural event, each responding to one of the questions above. The first, momentum, makes the case for a deeper temporal understanding of drought that attends to the inertia of water-intensive socio-technical systems. The second, interconnection, examines how linkages between these systems and regional-to-global infrastructure networks can amplify situated water demands. The third, visibility, explores mechanisms through which infrastructures can normalise social and organisational water management practices in ways that shape drought responses.

KEYWORDS: Drought, infrastructure, water politics, scale, Panama

Digital environmental governance in China: Information disclosure, pollution control, and environmental activism in the Yellow River Delta

Jiaxin Tan
Independent Researcher; Guangzhou, China; jiaxintam@hotmail.com

Irit Eguavoen
Center for Development Research, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany; eguavoen@uni-bonn.de

ABSTRACT: The Chinese water bureaucracy increasingly utilises information and communications technology (ICT) in order to strengthen interaction with the population, which is severely affected by industrial pollution. Government webpages, mailboxes, and online interviews with officers have become prevalent tools for environmental governance, including information disclosure, and a virtual communication forum between the state and its citizens. The present study employs a mixed methods approach with a qualitative emphasis to explore the process of communication and interaction between government agencies and local residents in Dongying, Shandong Province. The results show that information disclosure of pollution data remains far from being transparent, despite the fact that the local government has implemented digital environmental governance, as encouraged by the central Chinese state. Internet technologies empower resource-poor environmental activists in Dongying to strengthen their social network and build communication with the authorities. The application of bureaucratic techniques, however, is key for them to enter the communication interface with government agencies in order to influence political decisions. Results suggest that local cadres tend to send mixed signals to activists and display wariness towards them. They also tend to take preventive measures to keep the situation under control when environmental disputes arise. The proposed communication interface approach sheds a clearer light on the complexity among the emergent ICTs, environmental activism, and digital governance.

KEYWORDS: Water pollution, NGO, information disclosure, ICT, Yellow River Delta, China

The failure of the largest project to dismantle hydroelectric dams in europe? (Sélune River, France, 2009-2017)

Marie-Anne Germaine
Paris Nanterre University, Laboratoire LAVUE UMR 7218 CNRS, Nanterre, France; marie-anne.germaine@parisnanterre.fr

Laurent Lespez
Paris Est Créteil University, LGP UMR 8591 CNRS, Créteil, France; laurent.lespez@u-pec.fr

ABSTRACT: The removal of two hydropower dams announced by the French government in November 2009 would have been an unprecedented operation at European scale due to their dimensions (36 and 16 m high). But this project has been strongly criticized at local level by elected officials and users. The Actor Network Theory is used to reconstitute the successive stages of the consultation process, from the first discussions about the future of the dams (2005) to the downgrading of the project (2016), finally leading to a simple draining of the lake and inspection of the dam. The ANT approach and the methodology based on stakeholder interviews and participant observation are fruitful to identify the actors – humans and non-humans like salmon or lakes – and to analyse their position in sociotechnical networks pro or against dam removal. This method aims to reconstruct the whole process of setting up the campaign groups and their trajectory and to understand the shaping of representations and values. It shows the opposite visions developed by the opponents and defenders of the dam concerning salmon and running/standing water. The way the dialogue process was conducted also plays a crucial role. Interrupted and characterized by many uncertainties, it failed in allowing a translation between expertise and local knowledge.

KEYWORDS: Dam removal, Actor Network Theory (ANT), micro-politics, governance, France

Science of the dammed: Expertise and knowledge claims in contested dam removals

Chris S. Sneddon
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA; cssneddon@dartmouth.edu

Francis J. Magilligan
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA; fjm@dartmouth.edu

Coleen A. Fox
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA; coleen.fox@dartmouth.edu

ABSTRACT: Historically, science and its associated expert voices often serve multiple roles in the context of complex environmental conflicts: investigators of undesirable environmental conditions; guarantors of “value-free” and de-politicised expertise and information regarding those conditions; authors of rationales that support one management decision over another; and sources of authority used to persuade sceptics or the public that a certain environmental action is logical and desirable. However, recent thinking in science and technology studies (STS) and political ecology emphasises how scientific knowledge and expertise are co-produced with the political, economic, and cultural arrangements characteristic of a given society and a given locale. In many environmental conflicts, expert knowledge is challenged on the grounds that it is out of touch and politically compromised. This paper examines the diverse scientific discourses and environmental narratives surrounding dam-removal processes in the region of New England, United States. Dam removals are increasingly seen by environmental advocacy organisations and state agencies as a means to rehabilitate degraded riverine systems, and these actors muster an array of science-based arguments in support of removal. Conversely, opponents highlight their place-based knowledge to counter the claims of removal advocates and question the motivations of expert knowledge. These competing claims feed into conflicts over dam removals in intriguing ways, and understanding how scientific knowledge and expertise are used (and misused) is crucial to understanding conflicts over river restoration and developing more participatory strategies of water governance. The question is not so much whose claims are truthful, but how such claims are inserted into, and negotiated within, controversial ecological interventions.

KEYWORDS: Dam removal, expert knowledge, public understanding of science, political ecology, New England

How provincial and local discourses aligned against the prospect of dam removal in New Brunswick, Canada

Kate Sherren
School for Resource and Environmental Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada; kate.sherren@dal.ca

Thomas M. Beckley
Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada; beckley@unb.ca

Simon Greenland-Smith
School for Resource and Environmental Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada; simon.greenland-smith@dal.ca

Louise Comeau
Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, Canada; louise27comeau@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: In 2013, the state-owned electrical energy utility in New Brunswick, Canada, announced that a problem with concrete expansion was shortening by 40 years the expected life of the 660 MW Mactaquac Generating Station on the Saint John River. Its construction late in the 1960s, and the subsequent inundation of 10,000 hectares (ha) was part of a regional modernisation programme. Locals lost homes, agricultural land, communities and landmarks and a new mill changed livelihoods and attracted new people. In the intervening decades, the reservoir has become locally cherished for waterfront living and pleasure boat recreation. Since 2012, independent social science research about the fate of the dam and headpond has been undertaken in parallel with stakeholder engagement and public relations by the electricity utility. The final decision was delivered late 2016. The chosen option was to extend the dam’s life through repairs in situ, not one of the options formally under consideration. This paper presents provincial-scale discourses on the Mactaquac decision, using a 2014 energy survey of 500 New Brunswick residents which included questions about the Mactaquac decision. Analysis reveals how provincial preferences aligned with local qualitative research (summarised in an Appendix), revealing preferences for ongoing headpond amenity and the avoidance of further trauma associated with major landscape change. Preferences of First Nations to remove the dam may yet prove disruptive to the announced option. The discussion summarises aspects of the case study relevant to other instances of dam removal and landscape transition, as well as exploring options for further theoretical development, testing or application. These opportunities include: why males and females demonstrated different scales of concern around Mactaquac; the implications of different framings of hydroelectricity development (e.g. sacrificial landscape or local energy) on removal debates; and, how public decision-making can usefully engage with rather than dismiss uncertainty and path dependency.

KEYWORDS: Amenity, energy, gender, hydroelectricity, multifunctionality, path dependency, sacrificial landscapes, social imaginary, stakeholder engagement, uncertainty, New Brunswick, Canada

Centring fish agency in coastal dam removal and river restoration

Caroline Gottschalk Druschke
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA; caroline.gottschalk.druschke@wisc.edu

Emma Lundberg
University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island, USA; emma_lundberg@my.uri.edu

Ludovic Drapier
LGP UMR CNRS 8591, Université Paris-Est Créteil, Créteil, France; ludovic.drapier@lgp.cnrs.fr

Kristen C. Hychka
University of Maryland, Center for Environmental Science, Solomons, Maryland, USA; khychka@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: This article considers the agentic capacity of fish in dam removal decisions. Pairing new materialist explorations of agency with news media, policy documents, and interviews related to a suite of dam decisions in a New England, USA watershed, we identify the ways that river herring seem constrained through technocratic discourse to particular human-defined roles in dam removal discussions. We suggest, meanwhile, that existing human relationships with salmonids like brook trout might serve as a bridge for public stakeholders and restoration managers to recognise the agentic creativity of fish in dam removal and river restoration decisions.

KEYWORDS: Actor Network Theory, brook trout, dam removal, river herring, transspecies