Water Resources Department, Bureau of Indian Standards, New Delhi.
The world faces a huge challenge to supply the water and energy needs of a rapidly growing population. Different countries or regions, at different stages of development, have developed and will continue to pursue their own policies to face their freshwater challenges and fulfill their energy needs. Dams have been considered by many decision-makers as a key solution. They have improved agricultural output by making more land suitable for cropping through irrigation while providing flood control and hydropower for millions of people. While many have benefited from the services large dams provide, their construction and operation have led to many significant, negative impacts. One of the consistent areas of controversy surrounding hydropower development has been over human and social issues and their scales and ranges vary from region to region.
Over the past decade, there have been substantial improvements in our understanding of the impacts of dams on riverine environments, and particularly those associated with hydropower developments. In line with this increased knowledge base, the management of the various issues arising from hydropower is undergoing rapid improvement. It has thus become imperative that proper guidelines should be codified so that there is uniformity of practices leading to an easier and practical review of the findings to reach a definitive technical and ecologically sustainable conclusion. While highlighting the increasing importance of environmental and social issues in the context of water resources projects this paper delineates the existing national standardization efforts in the areas of environmental management of water resources projects with special emphasis on the practices prevalent in India and steps needed to strengthen the existing capacity.
