Building better dams and managing water resources more effectively: the FutureDAMS agenda
| Dates: | 11 June 2018 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 16:00 |
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| What is it: | Symposium |
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| Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
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| How much: | Free |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, General public |
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More than 3,700 large dams planned or under construction, to service growing demands for energy and irrigation. This new generation of dam schemes has the potential to make a significant contribution towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris climate change commitments.
But maximising the benefits, while minimising the negative social and environmental impacts remains a challenge. The FutureDAMS consortium is investigating how to establish the knowledge base, tools and approach to enable dam projects to support resilient and sustainable development in a warming world.
The FutureDAMS programme is an innovative, international collaboration that seeks to improve decision-making about dams and major water management investments. Ghana has played a key role in international debates about the role of dams in national development through the damming of the Volta at Akosombo 50 years ago. However, much of the international debate remains a fight between for and against, with dam supporters arguing hydropower is essential to national development and that there will be great benefits, and civil society organisations/NGOs arguing that local communities and the environment will be destroyed. The FutureDAMS Programme, a collaboration led by the University of Manchester and partnering with CSIR and University of Ghana, seeks to move beyond this “dams are good, dams are bad” scenario.
We are creating more detailed understandings of the costs and benefits of dam-building and water management and of the different choices that decision-makers could take. FutureDAMS involves a collaboration across academic disciplines (social sciences, engineering and the natural sciences), across regions (the UK, Africa and Asia) and across sectors (academics, private companies and civil society) to co-produce useful knowledge. In this event we present cutting-edge ideas about the ways in which multi-criteria decision-making models and political economic analysis can contribute to better decisions.
This event aims to:
- raise awareness of FutureDAMS Programme in Ghana,
- deepen understanding of the complexity and trade-offs of decisions about dams/major water management decisions.
Target participants would be academics and students in engineering, modelling, social sciences and business studies. We would plan to report it as significant contribution to capacity in Ghana by introducing participants to the idea of multi-criteria simulations of dam/water management costs/benefits and getting academics/students to think about modelling/potential for modelling.
Jointly hosted by:
CSIR Water Research Institute and
the School of Engineering Sciences
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
ISSER Conference Hall
ISSER Conference Hall
The University of Ghana
Little Legron
Accra
