Ageing dams in India, US, other nations pose growing threat: UN report | India News – Times of India
NEW YORK: Over a thousand giant dams in India will probably be roughly 50 years outdated in 2025 and such ageing buildings the world over pose a growing risk, in accordance with a UN report which notes that by 2050, most individuals on Earth will dwell downstream of tens of hundreds of dams constructed in the twentieth century.
The report, titled ‘Ageing water infrastructure: An rising world danger’ and compiled by United Nations University’s Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health, says most of the 58,700 giant dams worldwide have been constructed between 1930 and 1970 with a design life of 50 to 100 years.
It stated at 50 years, a big concrete dam “would most probably begin to express signs of ageing.”
Ageing indicators embody rising circumstances of dam failures, progressively rising prices of dam restore and upkeep, rising reservoir sedimentation, and loss of a dam’s performance and effectiveness, “strongly interconnected” manifestations, the report stated.
“By 2050, most people on Earth will live downstream of tens of thousands of large dams built in the 20th century, many of them already operating at or beyond their design life,” in accordance with the UN University evaluation.
The evaluation contains dam decommissioning or ageing case research from the USA, France, Canada, India, Japan, and Zambia and Zimbabwe.
According to the report, the world is unlikely to witness one other giant dam-constructing revolution as in the mid-twentieth century, however dams constructed then will inevitably be displaying their age.
The report stated that 32,716 giant dams (55 per cent of the world’s whole) are discovered in simply 4 Asian nations: China, India, Japan, and South Korea – a majority of which can attain the 50-12 months threshold comparatively quickly.
The similar is true of many giant dams in Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe, it stated.
In India, there are over 1,115 giant dams that will probably be roughly 50 years outdated in 2025, greater than 4,250 giant dams in the nation will probably be over 50 years outdated in 2050 and 64 giant dams will probably be greater than 150 years outdated in 2050, it stated.
The report stated that roughly 3.5 million persons are in danger if India’s Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala, constructed over 100 years in the past, “were to fail”.
“The dam, in a seismically active area, shows significant structural flaws and its management is a contentious issue between Kerala and Tamil Nadu States,” it said.
The report added that dams that are well designed, constructed and maintained can “simply” reach 100 years of service but predicts an increase in “decommissioning” – a phenomenon gaining pace in the USA and Europe – as economic and practical limitations prevent ageing dams from being upgraded or if their original use is now obsolete.
In the US, the average age of 90,580 dams is 56 years. More than 85 per cent of US dams in 2020 were operating at or beyond their life expectancy and 75 per cent of US dam failures occurred after 50 years of age. The estimated cost to refurbish US dams is about USD 64 billion. Nearly 1,275 dams were removed in 21 US states in the last 30 years; 80 removed in 2017 alone, it said.
Worldwide, the huge volume of water stored behind large dams is estimated at 7,000 to 8,300 cubic kilometres – enough to cover about 80 per cent of Canada’s landmass under a meter of water.
The report’s co-author Vladimir Smakhtin, Director of UNU-INWEH, said the report aims to attract global attention to the creeping issue of ageing water storage infrastructure and stimulate international efforts to deal with this emerging, rising water risk.
“Underlined is the truth that the rising frequency and severity of flooding and other excessive environmental occasions can overwhelm a dam’s design limits and speed up a dam’s ageing course of. Decisions about decommissioning, due to this fact, have to be taken in the context of a altering local weather,” Smakhtin said.
Lead author and UNU-INWEH Senior Researcher Duminda Perera said the problem of ageing large dams today confronts a relatively small number of countries – 93 per cent of all the world’s large dams are located in just 25 nations.
“Large dam building surged in the mid-twentieth century and peaked in the Sixties – 70s particularly in Asia, Europe and North America, whereas in Africa the height occurred in the Nineteen Eighties. The quantity of newly-constructed giant dams after that constantly and progressively declined,” he siad.
The tempo of giant dam building has dropped dramatically in the final 4 many years and continues to say no in half as a result of “the best locations for such dams globally have been progressively diminishing as nearly 50 per cent of global river volume is already fragmented or regulated by dams,” the report says.
There are additionally sturdy issues concerning the environmental and social impacts of dams, and enormous dams in explicit, in addition to rising concepts and practices on the choice varieties of water storage, nature-based mostly options, and kinds of power manufacturing past hydropower, it stated.
Public security, escalating upkeep prices, reservoir sedimentation, and restoration of a pure river ecosystem are among the many causes driving dam decommissioning, the report stated, including that total, dam decommissioning needs to be seen as equally necessary as dam constructing in the general planning course of on water storage infrastructure developments.
The report, titled ‘Ageing water infrastructure: An rising world danger’ and compiled by United Nations University’s Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health, says most of the 58,700 giant dams worldwide have been constructed between 1930 and 1970 with a design life of 50 to 100 years.
It stated at 50 years, a big concrete dam “would most probably begin to express signs of ageing.”
Ageing indicators embody rising circumstances of dam failures, progressively rising prices of dam restore and upkeep, rising reservoir sedimentation, and loss of a dam’s performance and effectiveness, “strongly interconnected” manifestations, the report stated.
“By 2050, most people on Earth will live downstream of tens of thousands of large dams built in the 20th century, many of them already operating at or beyond their design life,” in accordance with the UN University evaluation.
The evaluation contains dam decommissioning or ageing case research from the USA, France, Canada, India, Japan, and Zambia and Zimbabwe.
According to the report, the world is unlikely to witness one other giant dam-constructing revolution as in the mid-twentieth century, however dams constructed then will inevitably be displaying their age.
The report stated that 32,716 giant dams (55 per cent of the world’s whole) are discovered in simply 4 Asian nations: China, India, Japan, and South Korea – a majority of which can attain the 50-12 months threshold comparatively quickly.
The similar is true of many giant dams in Africa, South America, and Eastern Europe, it stated.
In India, there are over 1,115 giant dams that will probably be roughly 50 years outdated in 2025, greater than 4,250 giant dams in the nation will probably be over 50 years outdated in 2050 and 64 giant dams will probably be greater than 150 years outdated in 2050, it stated.
The report stated that roughly 3.5 million persons are in danger if India’s Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala, constructed over 100 years in the past, “were to fail”.
“The dam, in a seismically active area, shows significant structural flaws and its management is a contentious issue between Kerala and Tamil Nadu States,” it said.
The report added that dams that are well designed, constructed and maintained can “simply” reach 100 years of service but predicts an increase in “decommissioning” – a phenomenon gaining pace in the USA and Europe – as economic and practical limitations prevent ageing dams from being upgraded or if their original use is now obsolete.
In the US, the average age of 90,580 dams is 56 years. More than 85 per cent of US dams in 2020 were operating at or beyond their life expectancy and 75 per cent of US dam failures occurred after 50 years of age. The estimated cost to refurbish US dams is about USD 64 billion. Nearly 1,275 dams were removed in 21 US states in the last 30 years; 80 removed in 2017 alone, it said.
Worldwide, the huge volume of water stored behind large dams is estimated at 7,000 to 8,300 cubic kilometres – enough to cover about 80 per cent of Canada’s landmass under a meter of water.
The report’s co-author Vladimir Smakhtin, Director of UNU-INWEH, said the report aims to attract global attention to the creeping issue of ageing water storage infrastructure and stimulate international efforts to deal with this emerging, rising water risk.
“Underlined is the truth that the rising frequency and severity of flooding and other excessive environmental occasions can overwhelm a dam’s design limits and speed up a dam’s ageing course of. Decisions about decommissioning, due to this fact, have to be taken in the context of a altering local weather,” Smakhtin said.
Lead author and UNU-INWEH Senior Researcher Duminda Perera said the problem of ageing large dams today confronts a relatively small number of countries – 93 per cent of all the world’s large dams are located in just 25 nations.
“Large dam building surged in the mid-twentieth century and peaked in the Sixties – 70s particularly in Asia, Europe and North America, whereas in Africa the height occurred in the Nineteen Eighties. The quantity of newly-constructed giant dams after that constantly and progressively declined,” he siad.
The tempo of giant dam building has dropped dramatically in the final 4 many years and continues to say no in half as a result of “the best locations for such dams globally have been progressively diminishing as nearly 50 per cent of global river volume is already fragmented or regulated by dams,” the report says.
There are additionally sturdy issues concerning the environmental and social impacts of dams, and enormous dams in explicit, in addition to rising concepts and practices on the choice varieties of water storage, nature-based mostly options, and kinds of power manufacturing past hydropower, it stated.
Public security, escalating upkeep prices, reservoir sedimentation, and restoration of a pure river ecosystem are among the many causes driving dam decommissioning, the report stated, including that total, dam decommissioning needs to be seen as equally necessary as dam constructing in the general planning course of on water storage infrastructure developments.
