Geography Wasserkraftentwicklung in Himachal Pradesh, Indien

Economically attractive, politically controversial and assessed very differently in terms of ecological impacts - the exploitation of hydropower resources is one of the most significant human-environmental interactions in the Indian Himalaya. After decades of comparatively modest development, recent years have witnessed a major intensification of hydropower development due to the soaring energy demand of North India's growth centers and the international promotion of hydropower as a renewable energy. This development is particularly evident in the state of Himachal Pradesh which aims to become “the hydropower state of the country” (GoHP 2010: 56) by transforming its mountain rivers into cascades of power plants. Against this background, this thesis examines the recent hydropower boom in Himachal Pradesh from a political ecology perspective. The study focuses on the promotion of hydropower in the context of climate change as well as on aspects of environmental planning. At the same time, it explores the different meanings attributed to hydropower and associated trade-offs. In the first part, the study shows how the re-evaluation of hydropower as a form of renewable energy has led to a renaissance in dam-building and materializes in the financial support for controversial dams. The local ecological and socio-economic consequences of hydropower projects supported by the international climate financing instrument Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) are analyzed through two case studies of specific projects in Himachal Pradesh. The subsequent study of the environmental planning system further examines the local and regional environmental impacts of dam-building, thereby identifying a 'planning vacuum' with regards to the cumulative effects of extensive hydropower development. Finally, the concurrence of potential for climate change mitigation on one side and massive local environmental impacts on the other side calls for the exploration of ecological trade-offs which are analyzed by using an actor-oriented multilevelapproach. From an overall perspective, this thesis constitutes an integrative study which starts by  describing the discursive re-evaluation of dams, then empirically analyzes specific questions of recent hydropower development in Himachal Pradesh and concludes by exploring the trade-offs between global climate change mitigation and local environmental protection. 

PhD Candidate: Alexander Erlewein
Funding: Large Dams and ‘Clean Development’: Transcultural Narratives about Global Environmental Change and their Asymmetric Impact, C8
Duration:

Erlewein A (2014): The Promotion of Dams Through the Clean Development Mechanism: Between Sustainable Climate Protection and Carbon Colonialism. In: Nüsser M (eds): Large Dams in Asia. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2798-4_8

Erlewein A (2013) Disappearing rivers — The limits of environmental assessment for hydropower in India. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 43:135–143.

Erlewein A (2012) Energie aus dem Himalaya: Ursachen und Folgen des aktuellen Wasserkraftbooms in Himachal Pradesh, Indien. Geographische Rundschau 64:25–33.

Erlewein A, Nüsser M (2011) Offsetting Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Himalaya? Clean Development Dams in Himachal Pradesh, India. Mountain Research and Development 31:293–304.