ICOLD members - Japan

January 15, 2001

Mr. C.V.J Varma

President, International Commission on Large Dams

JCOLD -　Response to the Final Report of the World Commission on Dams

Firstly, JCOLD expresses its respect for the vigorous and enthusiastic way that the WCD has successfully carried out the massive task of completing the final report.

The WCD was given the following two mandates at the workshop held in Gland, Switzerland in 1997.

• Review the development effectiveness of large dams and assess alternatives for water resources and energy development.
• Develop internationally acceptable criteria, guidelines and standards, where appropriate, for the planning, design, appraisal, construction, operation, monitoring and decommissioning of dams.

And the WCD final report completed in November 2000 appears to consist of proposals to avoid or mitigate social, environmental, and economical impacts, which are based on the frameworks of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development and the Rio Declaration on Environmental and Development.

We have no disagreements with this basic concept.

But we have, through a close examination of the details of the report, discovered several parts where there are insufficient or inappropriate explanations and considerations.

We would like to make our comments on several matters about the WCD final report.

Regarding the letter dated November 30 from Mr. C.V.J. Varma, ICOLD President to Prof. Kader Asmal former Chairman of the WCD, JCOLD entirely agrees with its contents, and we have not duplicated the same opinions in this paper.

In particular, we wish to emphasize the following points.

1) The role of Dams

It is natural that circumstances surrounding the water resources development and methods of conducting such development differ greatly in each country.

For instance, relevant features of Japan include the small size of its national land. Others are the mountains that occupy most of this land, the heavy rainfall it receives in its location in the Asian monsoon zone, and the fact that most of this rain falls during short periods in the early summer rainy season and during the typhoon season. Social conditions include Japan’s extremely high population density that results in extremely advanced land use in both urban and rural districts.

Therefore, since ancient times, our ancestors have continually worked hard to obtain water resources, utilize this water, and to prevent flooding. Under such circumstances, dams have played a major role in the economic development and the resolution of problems faced by Japanese society. The Japanese government has established many kinds of institutional frameworks for constructing and managing the dams smoothly and taken measures to avoid or mitigate social and environmental impacts according to Japanese condition.

We at JCOLD are confident that the construction and management of dams will be continued to be one of the most effective ways to deal with a variety of serious issues of water, food, and energy problems and flood disasters.

We feel it is very important to solve the anticipated serious issues related largely increasing world population and its urban centralizing, the water problems, food problems and GHG emission issues as the common issues in the world. JCOLD expresses its much interest on the WCD final report.

2) The lack of analyses in the final report

We think the Report should include analyses on the following issues.

• Awareness of the facts concerning the serious water problems, food problems, energy problems, and flood disasters that the world now faces
• Considering solutions needed to resolve water problems if they become more serious in the near future because of the growth of world’s population, global warming and so on.
• Evaluation of the public merits and demerits of delaying dam construction due to adoption of new criteria and guidelines proposed by the Report
• Analysis of present procedures performed according to the size and effects of each project

3) Methods of analyzing social and environmental impacts

The WCD analyzed the impacts of dams on human society and the environment on a few cases of large projects of dams. But it is necessary to analyze according to different definition based on dam height and reservoir capacity with a new definition that refers to the number of people forced to be relocated, ground area submerged, construction period, climate, natural features, and economic status in the project area.

4) Criteria, guidelines and standards for development

As we have already mentioned, each dam has its own backgrounds in terms of natural and social conditions. Therefore, we should think how directly the criteria, guidelines and standards for development are introduced depends on the backgrounds.

5) Use of simple English

The WCD final report is too thick and each sentence is also long and it is too difficult to understand easily for people living in the countries where English is not a native language. It is necessary to prepare documents that are a little simpler in order to present proposals to countries whose citizens are not native speakers of English.

The Environmental Committee of ICOLD is studying the “resettlement issue,” and actions that must be taken in the future are now being organized. Although not yet ready for publication, “Report on the Resettlement Issue – Lessons and Recommendations Based on Experience”, is at the final draft stage. Because it will present detailed explanations of past trends and the need to resolve problems with resettlement, ICOLD should publish it as soon as possible. It will partly make up for shortcomings of the final report of the WCD.

We hold many opinions regarding the WCD final report, accordingly we would welcome discussions among all parties concerned with water, energy, and flood problems to determine the best policies to eventually overcome these problems.

Consequently, if supplementary debate concerning the WCD’s propose conducted in the future, we would be delighted to take part in such a debate based on a fair method with other professional organizations concerned with the sustainable development of river basins.

Yours Sincerely

Hirose Toshio, Dr Eng.

President, Japan Commission on Large Dams