Kandadji Dam - Environmental, Social and Downstream Impact

Environmental, Social and Downstream Impact

Negative social impacts include the resettlement of almost 35,000 people from 15 villages, loss of infrastructure (a national road, boreholes, clinics, schools, mosques, slaughterhouses, markets and grain mills) and loss of about 7,000 ha of agricultural land. According to a 2007 report by UNEP's Dams and Development Project, which itself was a follow-up activity to a report by the World Commission on Dams, the Kandadji project "serves as a useful example of the projection and estimation of social effects, which appears to have been widely encompassing, covering both negative impacts and benefits." These impacts were "projected at an early stage in project planning, enabling issues and potential impacts to be addressed in subsequent planning phases."

The project is expected to improve the river's ecology, which has suffered from a 30% decline in river flows since the 1970s. The dam would regulate flows. According to press reports from Nigeria, the project would reduce the river flow to Nigeria by at least 10 percent, thus jeopardizing power production from two existing dams in Nigeria and meaning a "colossal loss (...) to the agricultural capacity of (Nigerian) states that border the River Niger". However, according to the 2008 environmental assessment of the project the "modifications of the quantities of water flowing into the Niger River as a result of the Kandadji dam will be minimal in Nigeria". The average loss through evaporation and modification of the Niger River water flows in Nigeria will be low (2.3% at Jebba) and there will be positive impacts by improving the minimum water level in Nigeria.