Private funding brings boom in hydropower – with high costs

Shared river: The Zangmu Hydropower Station in Gyaca county in Lhoka in south-west China’s Tibet region. China has begun generating electricity from Tibet’s biggest ever hydropower project, the latest dam development on Himalayan rivers that has prompted concern in neighbouring India. – AFP

Developing countries continue to build large dams despite concerns about their environmental impact and the displacement of people.

WHILE some dams in the United States and Europe are being decommissioned, a dam-building boom is underway in developing countries. It is a shift from the 1990s, when amid concerns about environmental impacts and displaced people, multilateral lenders like the World Bank backed away from large hydroelectric power projects.