Environmental impact assessment for river valley projects: Complexities and methadologies

Water Resources Development (WRD) has become a lifeline of progress and prosperity for India. WRD projects are indispensable as they are inexorably linked to the Indian economy, besides their need for the welfare of the growing mosses, However, in the last two decades, very strong opposition has been voiced to the construction of large dams arguing that irreparable damage to the environment may result due to such projects. On the one hand a fear syndrome has been created in recent years against WRD projects by exaggerating the likely or assumed adverse environmental impacts and by ignoring or suppressing their need and tremendous benefits. On the other hand, controversial debates are generated on the grounds that the possible environmental impacts, are not properly evaluated in many projects. As a result, many potential economic developmental activities, which could generate wealth and employment have been blocked in large cities, towns and villages due to acute shortage of water especially during the dry season. At the same time, fury of floods routinely continue to affect the economic activities causing large scale loss of life and properties. The main difficulty in the present situation arises from the fact that most of the people associated with environmental activism and press reporting in India have very little understanding of the complex multi-disciplinary environmental processes. They generally overstress one or two aspects of the problem in isolation and that too after the crop has been harvested. It is crucial that the vital basics of complex environmental process and intricacies of water resource planning are taught right since the schooling days. Experts of different disciplines, should also be encouraged to garner the necessary understanding of the complexities of 'dose-response functions' of various elements in the ecological and developmental cycles. This article aims to present the procedures for Environmental Impact Assessment (M) for water resources projects.