India, Bangladesh on Edge Over China's Ambitious Dam Project

China has green-lighted the construction of the world's biggest hydropower dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet. Once completed, it will be the world's most powerful power plant. However, the project raised alarm at the environmental and geopolitical implications for countries downstream, India and Bangladesh being particularly worried as the same river is also referred to there as the Brahmaputra.

The Yarlung Tsangpo originates from the glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau, popularly known as the third pole owing to its enormous ice reserves. The river system is life-supporting for South and Southeast Asia, sustaining more than a billion people across a number of countries. As the river enters India and then Bangladesh, it becomes an important source of freshwater, agriculture, and an ecosystem.

The envisioned dam, under China's vision of long-term ramp-up of renewable energy production, underscored challenges of co-management of trans-boundary water. Although the regional importance of Brahmaputra means that China, India, and Bangladesh are supposed to cooperate for its utilization, there is no overall treaty involving the three governments. In fact, lack of a treaty complicates and stresses relations at periods of climatological duress such as flooding or droughts.

Building such a large dam on an international border river is raising several questions. The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Dam will have considerable impact on the flow of a river, mainly by retaining considerable volumes of water and sediment. The Brahmaputra is among the richest rivers in the world in terms of sediment, and that sediment is very valuable to keep the soil fertile further downstream. Trapping the sediment behind the dam would lower northeast India's and Bangladesh's agricultural land fertility, which threatens the food security of the region.

In addition, the Sundarbans delta region, which covers part of India and most of Bangladesh's coastal area, relies on sediment runoff to preserve its ecological health. The region is already susceptible to rising sea levels and erosion. A sediment supply disruption would accelerate land degradation further, heightening the risks to one of the world's biggest mangrove forests and supporting communities.

Apart from the environmental consequences, the area where the dam is to be built is located in a seismically active region along the tectonic suture where the Indian and Eurasian plates are converging. The area thus remains vulnerable to earthquakes, landslides, and glacial lake outburst floods. A huge dam in this volatile environment heightens the chances of the infrastructure collapsing at the point of natural disasters, an eventuality that would be catastrophic downstream.

Hydrological changes caused by high dams in Nepal's history have caused people to be displaced, destroyed sensitive ecosystems, and enhanced flood hazard. Releasing water at uncertain times during monsoons may potentially face downstream regions with early and severe floods. Storing water during dry periods may result in worsening existing water shortage instead.

While the dam has large-scale and long-term effects, the Brahmaputra basin itself is less researched than other major river systems. One recent study of 286 transboundary river basins globally determined that rivers in the Global South, such as the Brahmaputra, receive significantly less academic attention than rivers in the Global North. While there is some research being done in the Global South, it is done by those outside and with more concern about geopolitical conflict than sustainable management.

The same research also identified that Global North research is largely about technical infrastructure and rivers governance, whereas Global South research more commonly reports on water conflict and access. The smaller river basins, which contain some of the highest rates of water stress, remain relatively underresearched in the scientific literature. Lacking this information gap, it is more difficult to create regionally specific, evidence-based solutions for governance to safeguard vulnerable persons and ecosystems.

There is indeed effective international cooperation for the management of transboundary rivers. The Danube in Europe, shared by 14 nations and governed by a collective convention, is an example of cooperative river management. Multilateral coordination of this sort is low for the Brahmaputra, however, despite being so vital to regional livelihood and stability.

Construction of Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Dam emphasizes the necessity of inclusive management of transboundary rivers. In the absence of open information sharing and signed agreements, down-stream nations are at risk of being exposed to unilateral decisions. Increased cooperative and research-oriented response is required for achievement of the sustainable and equitable utilization of transboundary water resources.

Source/Credits:
Supplied by The Conversation. Written by Mehebub Sahana.
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