The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams

• Preface: A Ballad of Ecological Awareness
• Foreword by Brent Blackwelder

 
PART I: Introduction

• Chapter 1: The Overt Reasons for Building Dams

 
PART II: Before the Flood

• Chapter 2: Dams and Society—The Problems of Resettlement
• Chapter 3: Social and Cultural Destruction

 
PART III: After the Flood   

• Chapter 4: Closing the Dam: Loss of Land and Wildlife Upstream, Loss of Silt
• Chapter 5: Water Losses: Exceeding Gains
• Chapter 6: The Effects of Perennial Irrigation on Pest Populations
• Chapter 7: Dams and Disease
• Chapter 8: The Effects of Large-Scale Water Projects on Fisheries
• Chapter 9: Dams, Failures and Earthquakes
• Chapter 10: The Myth of Flood Control
• Chapter 11: Salting the Earth: The Problem of Salinisation
• Chapter 12: Management and Maintenance—Perennial Problems
• Chapter 13: Loss of Land and Food to Plantations
• Chapter 14: The Loss of Land and Water to Industry and Urbanisation
• Chapter 15: Dams, Pollution and the Reduction of Food Supplies
• Chapter 16: Sedimentation: The Way of All Dams
• Chapter 17: Are These Problems Inevitable?

 
Part IV: The Politics of Damming

• Chapter 18: Social and Environmental Impact Studies
• Chapter 19: The Politics of Damming
• Chapter 20: Fudging the Books

 
Part V: Traditional Irrigation: Learning from the Past

• Chapter 21: The Qanats of Iran
• Chapter 22: The Traditional Irrigation System of the Sonjo
• Chapter 23: The Traditional Irrigation System of the Chagga
• Chapter 24: Traditional Irrigation in the Dry Zone of Sri Lanka
• Chapter 25: Traditional Irrigation in Mesopotamia
• Chapter 26: The Lessons of Traditional Irrigation Agriculture: Learning to Live with Nature

 
Part VI: What Should be Done?

• Chapter 27: Recommendations

 
APPENDICES

• Appendix 1: Reservoirs with Dams greater than 100 metres high
• Appendix 2: Distribution of Saline and Alkaline Lands