After the World Commission…Dams In The Future
ICOLD: views from the international dam community

[Note: Slides referred to are unavailable]

The presentation begins with a short account of the WCD report, from a personal perspective, but taking account of ICOLD's formal response. We note the specific recommendation of WCD that organisations such as ICOLD should promote a culture of evaluation of the performance of the technical, economic and environmental aspects of their work, and should develop processes for certifying compliance with WCD guidelines.

Selected recommendations, relevant to the work of ICOLD, are outlined for later discussion. This is followed by a brief description of what ICOLD is and what it does, emphasising the structure of the organisation, comprising some 80 member countries. Some of the ICOLD member countries are deeply aware of their responsibility to develop water resources within their country, and their right to do this without external interference.

This leads to discussion on the practicalities of three recommendations of relevance to ICOLD's work. Consulting the people, as recommended by WCD, will involve the communication between technical engineers and indigenous peoples, which will require sensitivity on both sides, and training. The efficiency of operation of existing projects so that they meet their planned output is close to ICOLD's heart and to improve this would meet one of the WCD's criticisms of water projects. Improved maintenance procedures and the improvement of the monitoring of water projects are both important and ICOLD can assist by establishing guidelines for these activities.

Introduction

ICOLD's formal response to the WCD report will be published during the next few days. With this as a background, I am offering my personal response as a Vice President of ICOLD. I represent the European zone and this will colour my remarks, as will my area of technical interest, which will be clear when I say that I was the chairman of the ICOLD Committee on Rehabilitation of Dams and Appurtenant Works, and a member of the predecessor committee on the ageing of these structures. You will forgive me I hope if I focus my attention today on the issues of operation and maintenance of existing project infrastructure, which is I believe near the centre of the WCD recommendations bearing as it does on the public acceptability of dam projects.

I am sure that everyone would agree that something was needed to overcome the acrimonious debate over the issue of dams. There is good evidence that the debate had moved beyond the point of rationality and the following personal incident illustrates the situation. I was recently in Sierra Leone, having carried out an inspection of Guma dam, on which the water supply for Freetown substantially depends. As many will know, this is a very poor country and for it to progress at all politically it must have a reliable source of water and power for its capital. At a reception at the High Commission, well-meaning people enquired as to my reason for visiting. When I told them, there was a visible recoil and I was asked whether I was not ashamed of my profession. It was not the sort of place to discuss the issue, but it was clear that the feelings ran deep on the other side. Dams are bad.

It is this lack of dialogue that the WCD report seeks to improve. WCD have not produced a technical document. Rather it is one offering a way of mobilising the strength of the whole community behind much needed projects.

Many ICOLD members have welcomed the WCD report as a means of overcoming the shortfall in understanding that this small personal incident reveals. But it is also true that some of my ICOLD colleagues are anxious lest the procedure proposed by the WCD will add unacceptable cost and time to desperately-needed projects. To them I would say that the procedures proposed by the WCD may become inevitable as the effect of education spreads throughout the world. It behoves us to study the procedures, improve them if appropriate, and to implement them efficiently. I hope it is not too controversial to observe that while an individual, elected government is responsible for what happens within its country, the message from WCD is that projects will be better, and be better accepted, if good procedures are followed. The WCD report is therefore important. It guides us on a methodology of acceptable thinking and means of approaching the debate and it should be studied by all with any involvement in the industry.

Among the recommendations that the WCD offers to ICOLD and similar organisations, summarised on p 314 of the report, are:

• Promote a culture of evaluation and internal reflection
• Improve communications with non-technical people who are non-the-less deeply involved with the dam question
• Set up procedures to monitor the compliance of projects with the WCD guidelines
• Improve and broaden our data bases.

I will refer again to some of these during my discussion.

The WCD Report

This slide reproduces Figure 2.5 of the report. It encapsulates my theme today that, put succinctly, is that we engineers we must make existing projects work well before we can expect a consensus agreeing to build more dams. It shows that for irrigation schemes ten years after construction, the best-fit line represents an output less than 75% of the planned figure. Hydro projects fare a little better. In my experience it is in the developing world where the problem of poor operation is worst, although there are of course exceptions. This is where engineers from the ICOLD member countries operate as consultants, contractors and as funders.

The three recommendations that I select from the report for my brief discussion today all relate to the poor performance of existing projects. Specifically the WCD urges us to:

• consult the affected people before building. The aim should be for those displaced by the dam to be better off after its construction than they were before
• improve the efficiency of output of existing projects, acknowledging that operation and maintenance will cost more
• monitor the performance and behaviour of existing projects.

These are the headings of subsequent slides. The report is fair on the benefits of dams too, although I would have preferred more discussion on the benefits that dams provide to millions in the world today. It confirms that, although they could do better, dams do a great deal of good for society. It also provides valuable research data, including for example the emission of CO2 at Tucurui reservoir in Brazil. This report and its knowledge base is a valuable source of data and ICOLD will have to decide how best to use it.

Despite these positive aspects, I am sorry to say that, consistent with my theme, the next few slides will include examples of poor maintenance that I will use as a background to my observations on the report.

ICOLD

Born in the 1920s as a child of the World Energy Council, ICOLD exists to provide a means of communication to its membership. Its output is principally Bulletins, the recommendations of the technical committees, and occasional position papers. A typical example is the Position Paper on Dams and the Environment that was quoted with approval by the WCD..

ICOLD meets annually to conduct its business with the 80 National Committees, and to progress the work on its technical committees. The last meeting was in Beijing and the next will be in Dresden. The British Dam Society is the UK National Committee, also known as UKCOLD and we provided financial and technical support to the WCD.

ICOLD's role is to promote the understanding of and good practice in dam engineering. It does not promote projects, although it appears that some of those opposed to dams believe we do. We are a technical facilitator and the quality of our technical work is endorsed by WCD. As such we can think of ourselves as technical engineers, hence the flavour of the theme of my discussion to you. It will be clear that ICOLD has no interest in any but a project of fully appropriate quality.

In some countries our guidelines do influence the national decision makers. Many National Committees form a local de-facto industry regulator, publishing guidelines representing the state of the art in the country. In the absence of other guidance, these can become almost legally enforceable as the definition of competent professional practice.

Even if my understanding, that the WCD work cost $10 million is grossly exaggerated, ICOLD could not have prepared the WCD report. This is because we rely on volunteer labour, a factor that has proved to be a limiting feature in the debate over whether dams are desirable or not. But it did not stop us from making a comprehensive technical contribution to the thematic reviews.

The Future: Consulting the People

This slide deals with the first of the three WCD recommendations concerning ICOLD that I referred to above. Remember the words of Nelson Mandela at the launch of the WCD report.

As engineers we have a duty to use this document and the guidance it contains for the betterment of mankind. It is our duty to communicate with people who have no technical education but whose lives are deeply affected by our projects. It is a question of human rights. Many of the comments on the WCD report have focussed on the difficulty of doing this well at a reasonable cost. I believe that ICOLD may have a legitimate role here.

WCD recommend that ICOLD should promote a culture of evaluation and self-reflection to ensure continuous learning. In blunt terms this encompasses learning to explain our thinking, on which the comfort and safety of many depends, and to obtain a consensus on the way forward. This will be a good starting point for refining our skills in communicating with non-technical partners. The zealot has difficulty convincing with logic and discourse and I am reminded of the catch phrase

It would be good too if ICOLD were to consider preparing guidelines to help engineers to communicate effectively with non-technical people. The challenge will be to communicate the technical benefits and concerns of a project adequately to an indigenous people in a potentially hostile environment. This will require training and specialist help to make sure that the complex arguments are understood and that projects proceed without undue delay.

The Future: Improving the Efficiency of Existing Projects

This slide shows an irrigation dam in Africa. This water is not going to irrigate anything. It is a source of frustration if not anger in anyone who understands at what cost the water was bought.

This is a recurrent theme in the WCD report. Where an existing project is not maintained properly it will be difficult to persuade people living nearby that the project is worthwhile or that a new one will be any better. There may be an issue of safety or of the loss of supply of water or power. There probably will be one of inefficient use of funds. There may be one of regional instability in the sense that lack of water may provoke hostilities.

Eric Hoffer, American Union leader is credited with saying that maintenance is the difference between a successful country and one that fails. I believe that progress will be made on this matter once the human element is considered. Certainly O&M is costly, and the recommendations of the WCD will make it more so. But money is not the only issue. There is the puzzling psychological blockage so often revealed by owners who refuse to commit to a sensible O&M programme.

The Future: Monitoring Existing Projects

The failure to monitor a project properly is a related problem, with something of the same explanations for failure. It is also, as is maintenance failure, a matter of communicating effectively with non-technical people, something lying at the heart of the WCD report.

This slide shows an instrument house at an important water supply dam. The dam was built about fifty years ago and at the time it absorbed the attention of some of the best engineers in the world. The available materials had not been recognised before and much engineering was necessary before confidence was established and construction went ahead. If this dam were to fail, a major city would descend into anarchy as the inhabitants searched for drinking water. It is not in Sierra Leone. We must get to the bottom of the thinking that not only allows this vandalism to happen, but which does not understand the benefits of a minimum level of monitoring of an important dam.

This seems to be a situation where funding agencies must be prepared to become more involved with the effective running of existing projects. ICOLD can play a part by preparing guidelines, consistent with those of WCD, for long term monitoring and review of performance post construction based on our comprehensive experience.

Conclusion

This is a good report that will contribute to the development of appropriate dam projects. Some of the press reports at the launch suggested that some of those traditionally opposed to dams were seeking to use the report as justification for calling for a moratorium on dam construction. This is not my interpretation of its message. I urge all with an interest in dams to read the report and to use it to improve the quality of the debate.

It is not a technical report, and it is no criticism of it to say so. But it contains a wealth of technical data. It addresses the important issues in a thoughtful way.

In my view, it would make a major contribution to the debate if existing projects were to operate more efficiently. The status of dams would rise and there would be a higher level of technical understanding locally.

The report contains much for ICOLD to consider and to undertake. It will help us to communicate better and to avoid the dangers of arrogance. We will remain a key part of the dynamic of a developing world society.