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Mapping the social impacts of small dams: The case of Thailand’s Ing River basin

Ambio volume 48, pages 180–191 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

The social impacts of large dams have been studied extensively. However, small dams’ social impacts have been largely neglected by the academic community. Our paper addresses this gap. We examine the social impacts of multiple small dams in one upstream and one downstream village in Thailand’s Ing River basin. Our research is based on semi-structured interviews with beneficiaries, government and NGOs. We argue that small dams’ social impacts are multi-faceted and unequal. The dams were perceived to reduce fish abundance and provide flood mitigation benefits. Furthermore, the dams enabled increased access to irrigation water for upstream farmers, who re-appropriated water via the dams at the expense of those downstream. The small dams thus engendered water allocation conflicts. Many scholars, practitioners and environmentalists argue that small dams are a benign alternative to large dams. However, the results of our research mandate caution regarding this claim.

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Notes

  1. Large dams are defined as over 15 m in height, or between 5 and 15 m and impounding more than 3 million m3 (ICOLD 2016). While there is no agreed-upon definition of small dams, ICOLD defines small dams as under 15 m in height, a definition which we have adopted for this paper.

  2. Muang Fai is the traditional weir and dam irrigation system of Northern Thailand (see Sect. 3.2).

  3. Data on the dams’ impacts on fish species and quantities were unavailable, thus gathering this required multiple steps. First, villagers identified disappeared or decreasing fish. Their perceptions were compared with interviews with NGO workers (N1m, N3m) and an academic (A2f). The majority of these species are migratory, and are thus more likely impacted by small dams.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank our local partner organisation, The Mekong Community Institute, for assisting us and sharing their knowledge with us during fieldwork. We would also like to thank the two Ing River basin communities for hosting us, and our translator Numfon Jaiwong, for her assistance. Funding was provided by School of Geography and Environment, University of Oxford and Green Templeton College, University of Oxford.

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Affiliations

  1. Office of Environment and Heritage, 59-61 Goulburn Street, Sydney, 2000, NSW, Australia

    Zali Fung

  2. Mekong Community Institute, 49/4 Moo 4, Suthep, Muang, Chiang Mai, Thailand

    Teerapong Pomun

  3. School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK

    Katrina J. Charles

  4. Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development - Innovation Studies, Utrecht University, Willem C. van Unnikgebouw, Heidelberglaan 2, Room 1016, 3584 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Julian Kirchherr

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  1. Zali Fung
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  2. Teerapong Pomun
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  3. Katrina J. Charles
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  4. Julian Kirchherr
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Correspondence to Zali Fung.

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Fung, Z., Pomun, T., Charles, K.J. et al. Mapping the social impacts of small dams: The case of Thailand’s Ing River basin. Ambio 48, 180–191 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1062-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1062-7

Keywords

  • Infrastructure
  • Ing River basin
  • Small dams
  • Social impacts
  • Thailand