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Is small hydropower beautiful? Social impacts of river fragmentation in China’s Red River Basin

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Abstract

Small hydropower (SHP) is promoted as a pro-poor renewable energy source that does not have the negative social impacts of large dams. This article challenges these claims, using data from a household survey in China’s upper Red River Basin. We find that SHP can fragment river systems in ways that reduce irrigation water availability, provoke changes to agricultural practices, and negatively impact river health. These social impacts of river fragmentation mainly occur in villages situated between a plant’s intake and outflow. The frequency of plant water diversions due to continued generation in the dry season significantly predicts all social impacts; installed capacity of the plant and the quality of the village’s irrigation infrastructure predict some impacts. Villages with strong local governance can negotiate with the plant to temporarily halt generation when irrigation water is needed, lessening social impacts. Our findings reveal that SHP plants are not as benign as they are made out to be; they must be built and managed according to community needs.

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Notes

  1. Small dams differ from SHP because (1) many small dams do not produce hydroelectricity, and (2) many SHP plants do not have a dam. Undammed SHP plants that divert streamflow are known as “diversion-type run-of-river.”

  2. Many run-of-river SHP plants have a headpond that can store between one and a few days’ worth of water; however, these facilities are considered to be undammed.

  3. There is no single definition of SHP; national definitions range from < 5 MW in Laos to < 50 MW in China (Kelly-Richards et al. 2017). The most accepted definition is < 10 MW (UNIDO and ICSHP 2016).

  4. Drought years were 2011 (649 mm) and 2014 (674 mm).

  5. The only exceptions are subsidized “SHP Replace Fuelwood” plants, which includes the Malu plant in Xinping.

  6. Official name: Xinping Yi and Dai Autonomous County.

  7. 2,336 ha (4.5%) of dry fields in Xinping are rented to agribusiness orange growers. A few agribusinesses also grow lychees and sugar cane.

  8. In China, a single village is called a “natural village,” and a group of natural villages in the same administrative unit is called an “administrative village.” Natural villages classified in the same administrative village may be spread out over several km2. Thus, we randomly selected 1–3 natural villages in the same administrative village that are < 1 km from each other and < 1 km from the same SHP plant. The number of natural villages selected depended on density of settlement.

  9. In Jianxing township, which is entirely located above 800 m, we selected one village cluster at 2,100 m elevation, and one at 1,700 m elevation.

  10. This classification scheme was based on the survey question “Do you ever need water for your crops, but there is not enough available because of diversions by the plant?” If less than 1/3 of respondents in a village cluster answered yes, then the village cluster was coded as “rarely diverts.” If between 1/3 and 2/3 of respondents in a village cluster answered yes, then the village cluster was coded as “sometimes diverts.” If more than 2/3 of respondents in a village cluster answered yes, then the village cluster was coded as “almost always diverts.”

  11. Household characteristics are (1) total land held by household; (2) whether the household identifies as ethnic minority or not; (3) education level of respondent; (4) number of family members currently living in household; and (5) total annual household income.

  12. Each model includes only one driver (independent predictor variable), rather than all three drivers. We do this because our aim is to test how well each driver predicts social impacts (dependent variables) by itself—not how well two or more drivers together predict social impacts. Indeed, we make no claim that multiple drivers compound social impacts—just that each of the three drivers predict some social impacts to some degree.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the hardworking survey team and the many local villagers, government officials, and hydropower plant operators who took time to speak with us. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The usual disclaimers apply.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Urban and Environmental Studies, Loyola Marymount University, 1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA, 90045, USA

    Tyler Harlan

  2. Department of Environmental Science & Natural Resources, Yunnan Normal University, 298 Yi’eryi Road, Chenggong District, Kunming, 650092, Yunnan, China

    Rui Xu

  3. School of Ethnology and Sociology, Yunnan University, 2 North Cuihu Road, Wuhua District, Kunming, 650106, Yunnan, China

    Jun He

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  1. Tyler Harlan
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Correspondence to Tyler Harlan.

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Harlan, T., Xu, R. & He, J. Is small hydropower beautiful? Social impacts of river fragmentation in China’s Red River Basin. Ambio 50, 436–447 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01367-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-020-01367-z

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