Building Megadams in the Post-Colonial Era: the Growing Awareness of Environmental Impact

Dams have figured prominently in both colonial and post-colonial governments’ development planning as a means to control water resources and generate electric power. The construction of dams was supported by various types of techno-scientific reports, surveys and impact analysis. These largely focused on development-related aspects: the energy potential, the possible use in irrigation schemes to support large scale agriculture, the technicalities related to construction techniques and materials to be used in relation to the type of soil and geological landscape. Today, there is a growing consensus in the global scientific community, largely driven by scientists embedded in international organizations and think tanks, around the idea that large dam building can no longer be considered as an ecologically acceptable solution. Increasingly, the international community is moving away from larger water infrastructure and making the point that without proper scientific impact studies, even small-scale water projects can have serious ecological consequences and require a clearer perception of the tradeoffs between money and ecosystems. The road to this awareness has been fraught with obstacles, and development considerations remain prominent in dam-building in Africa. This essay investigates the nature of scientific analysis, impact assessments and technical studies produced around the building of large dams throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Specifically, the case study of Ethiopia’s big dam building shows how, increasingly, the rhetoric of sustainability and environmental care has been instrumental in promoting energy-intensive projects disguised as tools for a Greater Common Good. The article will rely on archival sources about large dams and the management of river basins in Africa (Kariba, Akosombo, Cahora Bassa, the Omo River basin), plus five-week field research mission to Addis Ababa where interviews were conducted with Ethiopian scientists, government officers, NGOs and technical staff from private firms involved in the construction of dams in the country