Water, dams, irrigation

Are farmers going to run out of water? - this talk was broadcast at various dates during December 2003 on the World Business Report programme of the BBC World Service, as part of a series of six talks by Edward Goldsmith.

How to feed people under a regime of climate change - Modern agriculture is not only highly vulnerable to climate change, it is also a major cause of climate change due to its emissions of greenhouse gases and its damaging effects on soil and freshwater resources. A combination of traditional agricultural knowledge and techniques, combined with newly emerging sustainable technologies, may hold the answers we need. Published in World Affairs Journal, winter 2003. Reprinted in Surviving the Century - facing climate chaos and other global challenges, edited by Herbert Girardet (Earthscan, May 2007).

Damned over the dam - Letter published in the Guardian on Saturday 3 July 1999.

The lessons of traditional irrigation - "Modern irrigation schemes in tropical areas are, almost without exception, social, ecological and economic disasters. They necessarily lead to the flooding of vast areas of forest and agricultural land, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people and the spreading of waterborne diseases like malaria and schistosomiasis ...". Published in The Ecologist Vol. 28 No. 3, May-June 1998.

FAO's plan to feed the world - Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard critique the FAO's main policy document, World Agriculture: Toward 2000, and the whole model of capital-intensive, industrialised, export-oriented agriculture which it promotes. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 21 No. 2, March-April 1991.

You can only be judged on your record - a second Open Letter to Barber Conable, President of the World Bank, calling on him to make good on his and his predecessors promises of progress on the social and environmental impacts of the Bank's lending. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 17 No. 2, 1987.

Dam starvation - editorial article from The Ecologist Vol. 14 No. 5/6, 1984 (co-written with Nicholas Hildyard). This article examines why politicians' promises that superdams will produce plenty for all turn, all to literally, to dust, poverty and hunger.

The myth of the benign superdam - "Are dams inevitably destructive? Some critics have argued that if stringent conditions are laid down before a dam is authorised, the devastation of the past decades could be avoided. A careful consideration of the suggested conditions, however, shows that few, if any, dams could pass the test...". Published in The Ecologist Vol. 14 No. 5/6, 1984.

The politics of damming - shows how giant dam projects are invariably driven by powerful political motives that override all other concerns. "Dams are never built in a political vacuum. For politicians they mean votes and prestige. To criticise dam projects is thus to face an uphill battle against the power of the state-one that is nearly impossible to win...". Published in The Ecologist Vol. 14 No. 5/6, 1984. Co-written with Nicholas Hildyard.

Misguided investment - a review of Developing Electric Power - thirty years of World Bank experience by Hugh Collier. The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1984. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 14 No. 3, 1984.

Damning dams - a review of Long-Distance Water Transfer - A Chinese Case Study and International Experiences, edited by Asit K. Biswas, Zuo Dakang, James E. Nickum and Liu Changming. Published in The Ecologist Vol. 14 No. 2, 1984. "The academic contributors to this book accentuate the terrible social and ecological disruption which is likely to be caused by China's proposed water transfer scheme. The bureaucrats, on the other hand, grossly exaggerate the benefits to be derived from the project and hardly mention the social and environmental consequences ..."

Large dams - recommendations - Published in conclusion of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

The lessons of traditional irrigation agriculture: learning to live with nature - published as Chapter 26 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

Traditional irrigation in Mesopotamia - Published as Chapter 25 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

Traditional irrigation in the dry zone of Sri Lanka - Published as Chapter 24 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

The traditional irrigation system of the Chagga of Kilimanjaro - Published as Chapter 23 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

The traditional irrigation system of the Sonjo of Tanzania - Published as Chapter 22 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

The qanats of Iran - Published as Chapter 21 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

Social and environmental impact studies - Published as Chapter 18 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

Sedimentation: the way of all dams - Published as Chapter 16 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

Management and maintenance - perennial problems Published as Chapter 12 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

Salting the earth: the problem of salinisation - Published as Chapter 11 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

The myth of flood control - published as Chapter 4 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

Social and cultural destruction - Published as Chapter 3 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.

Dams and society - the problems of resettlement - Published as Chapter 2 of The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams: Volume 1. Overview. Wadebridge Ecological Centre, 1984. By Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard.