The Problem of Perspective

Chapter three showed a distinct difference in what science was used to explain and understand the potential downstream impacts of the dam cascade. It was shown that the hydropower industry, and NGOs and academics had a distinctly different

understanding of downstream impacts. To understand these differences, it is best to understand stakeholder perspectives on hydropower development and its impacts, both positive and negative. Here, I used the research behind the Interdisciplinary Dam Assessment Model (IDAM) (see:; Brown et al 2008, 2009; Tullos 2009; Tullos et al 2010) to understand better the difference in stakeholder perspectives on hydropower development in Yunnan. The IDAM tool, as briefly touched upon in chapter 1 and 2, is an attempt to create an informed and transparent decision-making instrument around dam development. The impacts are put into three categories: biophysical, socioeconomic, and

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geopolitics. IDAM attempts to simultaneously assess the costs and benefits of a given project in terms of those three pillars (Tullos et al 2010). In Tullos et al (2010), the IDAM tool used 21 biophysical, socioeconomic, and geopolitical impacts of dam construction, each with its own independent analysts measured both by its scientifically objective impact, and its subjective salience with a given stakeholder. With certain impacts stakeholders were given measures of data quality and variability to properly assess the salience of an issue based data/information certainty.

Tullos et al (2010) surveyed fifteen water hydropower development experts in July 2009 in Kunming, and split them into three categories: professionals representing engineers, public officials, and the hydroelectric industry; representatives of

environmental and civil society non-governmental organizations (NGOs); and members of the academic community. The impacts were put into potential dam scenarios of varying scale, i.e. small local dams requiring only local approval, to a large-scale dam requiring the approval of both the NDRC and State Council (as is the case with the Upper Mekong). The results from the survey seem to follow along with the research contained in this thesis: overall academics and NGOs felt that the salience and importance of negative impacts exceed that of the positive impacts, while hydropower and government representatives saw positive impacts as greater than negative impacts, especially in terms of large-dams. Broken down into pillars, academics view biophysical and socioeconomic impacts to be greater than geopolitical impacts, with greater magnitude in the large dam scenario. NGOs perceived socioeconomic impacts, both positive and negative, as the most vital pillar out of the 3 groups. Most importantly, however, “hydropower and government officials perceived the greatest benefits and least negative impacts of the large dam scenario” (Tullos et al 2010). In addition, hydropower and government representatives rated the socioeconomic costs of large-scale development as nearly half the magnitude as academics did.

“Further and taken together, these results show not only that different stakeholder groups view the importance of different dam impacts differently, but also that they evaluate the magnitude of the same objective data differently” (Tullos et al 2010).

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This finding is key to understanding how and why certain information gains prominence in explaining downstream impacts. The fact that hydropower and government

representatives perceived the greatest benefits to large dams likely creates an inherent confirmation bias towards science suggesting milder impacts. The next step is to try to determine if this information was intentionally selected, or was it accepted and gained prominence as the dominant scientific explanation?

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Figure 12: Net magnitude and salience of dam impacts among academics, NGOs, hydropower representatives, and government representatives.

(Source: Tullos et al 2010, 82-83)

Throughout the process, Tullos et al (2010) found that for many of the participants, especially academics and NGOs, were hesitant to speak outside of their

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given area of expertise. Data gathered in China, was also problematic, as data, if available, is often collected from multiple locations or gathered by multiple agencies.

This is seen in chapter two with Walling (2009) and his reconstruction of Chinese datasets from multiple sources to create a reliable data source. The same concept seems to apply to stakeholders and decision-makers in China. While the AIRC most likely has the most reliable scientific information on the dams and their potential impacts, the information seems to be relatively contained within the center itself, and made for government and hydropower company consumption. Those articles published by AIRC researchers seem to base their studies on datasets also available to those scholars outside of China, while assessments made for the government and hydropower companies likely include data considered a state secret. This makes it more likely that the hydropower companies and government have higher quality information available to them than scholars building data sets from various data sets downstream that vary in compatibility.

This does not, however, ensure that the information is distributed throughout the entire decision-making apparatus nor does it free information from confirmation and selection bias.

Another important conclusion from Tullos (2009) and Tullo et al (2010), was outside of the “lateral” differences in stakeholder perspectives (i.e. academics and NGOs vs. government and hydropower officials), there is likely going to be “vertical”

differences in differing views regarding levels of decision-makers within the government.

As is seen above, this is certainly the case for the Nu river project with a very willing Yunnan provincial government attempting to push forward with a resistant central government in the early to mid 2000s. However, with the Upper Mekong this does not seem to be a factor as the cascade seems to have resided, for the most part, within the framework of development for poverty relief, or more recently low-carbon development.

“The job of the dam engineer is to engineer the dam. Valuing biological and social and ecological impacts has not been the job of the five big power companies. It has been the job of the basin commission, and the minister of water resources, and the ministry of fisheries. The extent to which they are excluded from the conversation, those priorities don’t get taken into account” (Darrin Magee, interview 03).

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Rather, hydropower companies are considering designing from a more power generation, water storage, and dam longevity perspective. They are not necessarily considering impacts 400 km downstream. The problem, then, is not a problem of a lack of

information or exposure to information, but rather a problem of perspective. He Daming himself, according to one interviewee, is an interesting case as his beginnings changes as a hydropower engineer in his undergraduate studies, to his current position as a

geographer has changed his views of dams. The problem is as much a matter of perspective as it is job description²⁴. During the conclusion of another such discussion with stakeholders in July of 2011, like the one above held in 2009, a head engineer dam builder stated that due to the difficulty in factoring in all the potential impacts within the IDAM tool, China simply does not assess them²⁵. In an interview with another researcher, he stated that he found it unlikely that hydropower companies examine impacts to water and sediment flow in terms other than those that may impact electricity production (e.g.

sedimentation), and therefore profit²⁶.

All of these factors come together to show that the sciences behind downstream impacts, whether positive or negative, are very likely subject to confirmation bias, misinterpretation from incomplete information likely based on a lack of interdisciplinary communication and understanding, and at times intentional misrepresentation. In turn, these very much advance some understandings of scientific information over others, which encouraged by the promotion of this information by actors close to decision-making, could very well influence understanding of development and the consequences of decisions. This comes at the exclusion of other scientific understandings of the same topic.

24  Interview  06:  AIRC  researcher  

25  Interview  03:  Darrin Magee Darrin  Magee,  Associate  Professor  of  Environmental   Studies,  Hobart  and  William  Smith  College.  

26  Interview  05:  AIRC  researcher  

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