Rivers without Boundaries

Era of Building Big Dams Draws to a Close

Experts say the world has hit ‘peak dams,’ which conservationists hail as good news for riverine ecosystems By Jacques Leslie | June 27, 2023  https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/ California’s Oroville Dam, the tallest in the U.S., sustained more than $1 billion in damages in 2017 when its spillway partially collapsed. The rising cost …

Civil Society Calls on Bankers to Take Global Biodiversity Framework Seriously

As exemplified by the continuing extermination of river ecosystems supported by multilateral banks, most international finance institutions are yet to understand that the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is awake-up call for the whole concept of “international development assistance” and international investments in general. The RwB Coalition supported an important appeal …

On Kakhovka Dam Destruction

By Oleksii Vasyliuk and Josh Klemm, EU Observer   Kyiv/Washington  Blasting of the Kakhovka Dam shocked the world as the extreme example of weaponization of civilian infrastructure, but it also raised questions about available paths for truly sustainable recovery after the war. This man-made disaster provides opportunities to rethink river …

LONG-TERM ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER CAUSED BY KAKHOVKA HYDROPOWER DAM BLAST

By LORI HINNANT, SAM McNEIL and ILLIA NOVIKOV Associated Press The destruction of the Kakhovka Dam was a fast-moving disaster that is swiftly evolving into a long-term environmental catastrophe affecting drinking water, food supplies and ecosystems reaching into the Black Sea. The short-term dangers can be seen from outer space …

New Canal Construction by Taliban Exacerbates Water Crisis in the Aral Sea Basin

Bakyt Ibraimov, Fawad Ali Source: The Third Pole May 18, 2023 Salt deposits in the Karakum desert, Turkmenistan, where experts say the Karakum Canal has resulted in land being salinised and seasonally waterlogged, making agriculture impossible (Image: Alamy) For more than 50 years, Afghanistan has contemplated building an enormous canal that …

Protecting Free Flowing Rivers – briefing for banks how to avoid harm

“Free flowing river” is an intuitively clear and appealing concept, but if we want its protection to be embedded into policies and regulations there is a need for formalized definition and identification algorithms. Our first attempt is directed at development banks, which often support destructive infrastructure projects negatively affecting wild …