Designing Dams That Don't Cost The Earth: Public lecture with Professor Bill Adams, University of Cambridge
Dates: | 18 October 2017 |
Times: | 17:00 - 18:30 |
What is it: | Lecture |
Organiser: | Global Development Institute |
Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Alumni, Current University students, General public, Post 16 |
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Throughout history, people have dreamed of harnessing free-flowing rivers for human benefit. Dams for flood control, water supply, irrigation and power generation have been constructed on all the world’s major river systems. Yet dams also have negative impacts – especially on the communities displaced, on fisheries and floodplain ecosystems. In 2000, the World Commission on Dams published a comprehensive review of dam building Dams and Development, setting out comprehensive guidelines for dam building. Despite this, new dams remain controversial and create losers as well as winners. Why it is so difficult to build dams without negative impacts, and to share their benefits equitably? As the world enters an era of renewed dam construction, this question is of global importance.
This lecture marks the launch of DAMS 2.0, a four year, £8 million, research programme, led by The University of Manchester.
Bill Adams is Moran Professor of Conservation and Development at the University of Cambridge, where he has taught in the Department of Geography since 1984. His work approaches questions of environmental development and conservation from perspectives of political ecology and environmental history. He worked for many years on river basin planning in Africa, and was Lead Writer on social impacts for the World Commission on Dams. Recent research has addressed the politics of landscape scale conservation and the power of ecosystem services and other metaphors in environmental policy. His books include Wasting the rain: rivers people and planning in Africa (Earthscan 1992) and Green Development: environment and sustainability in a developing world (Routledge 2009). Bill blogs at http://thinkinglikeahuman.com/.
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Lecture Theatre B
University Place
Manchester