Nam Theun 2 Dam - Environmental and Social Impacts

Environmental and Social Impacts

Environmental and social impacts of the project include downstream impacts, impacts on biodiversity, resettlement and reservoir sedimentation. More details can be found in the Environmental and Social Impact assessment], and in the summary provided for the various impacts below.

Monitoring and Evaluation NT2 has a multi-layer environmental and social monitoring and evaluation mechanism consisting of the following elements:

• A Panel of Environmental and Social Experts (POE), reporting to the government. The POE normally visits Laos at least once per year.
• An International Advisory Group(IAG), advising the World Bank. The IAG normally visits Lao PDR at least once per year.
• Independent Monitoring Agencies, reporting to the Government. The Independent Monitoring Agencies was in the process of being contracted in December 2006.
• The Lenders’ Engineer

Praise The comprehensive environmental and social measures designed to mitigate potential environmental and social impacts could become a "global model", according to a group of social and environmental experts who advise on the project.

Criticism According to the NGO International Rivers, there have been substantial shortcomings in the mitigation of impacts. According to the organization, compensation payments and replacement land for villagers affected by construction activities have been "inadequate, unfair or non-existent". Poor resettlement planning has led to housing and infrastructure delays. Plans to restore the livelihoods of villagers on the Nakai Plateau and along the Xe Bang Fai have yet to be finalized. And the budget for the downstream program in particular is said to be woefully inadequate.

A good or a bad dam? According to data in the World Bank publication "Good dams, bad dams", the ratio of area flooded and people resettled per Megawatt of installed electricity generating capacity (flooded area of 41 hectare per MW and 5 people resettled per MW) is neither very high, nor very low, compared to 48 other large dams analyzed. Using this specific analytical framework, Nam Theun 2 could neither be considered a "good" or a "bad" dam.