IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jecomi/v9y2021i4p140-d646359.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Impacts of a Mega-Dam Project as Perceived by Local, Resettled and Displaced Communities: A Case Study of Merowe Dam, Sudan

Author

Listed:
  • Al-Noor Abdullah

    (Plymouth Business School, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK)

  • Sanzidur Rahman

    (Plymouth Business School, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL4 8AA, UK
    Faculty of Economics, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan 250001, China)

Abstract

The paper assesses social impacts of a mega-dam project (Merowe Dam in Sudan) as perceived by host and affected communities (i.e., upstream, downstream, and relocated residents), which is not commonly seen in the literature. Primary survey and interviews were conducted with 300 residents, government officials, the Dam Implementation Unit (DIU), NGOs and other key informants. Five inter-related areas of impact were scrutinized: (a) displacement of communities; (b) resettlement of displaced communities in a new location; (c) technological factors; (d) social mobility factors; and (e) economic and political institutions. Results show that Merowe Dam exerted positive as well as adverse social impacts on local communities. Increase in home sizes, opportunities for children’s schooling and quality of life improvement ranked as the top three positive impacts with residents located downstream scoring relatively higher than relocated and upstream residents. Relocated residents also showed positive attitudes towards the provision of essential services (schools, health facilities, availability of running water, electricity, marketplace, etc.), thereby enabling them to enjoy and flourish in their social lives. The adverse impacts are centered on intangible factors, such as, sentimental effects closely related to their feelings, loss of history, memories, nostalgia about the old place, and grievances regarding compensation packages and its management. Therefore, it is important to recognize the need for long-term monitoring of the resettlement process and provide emotional support to those displaced and resettled. Furthermore, there is also a need to address the livelihood requirements of local communities in the affected region.

Suggested Citation

  • Al-Noor Abdullah & Sanzidur Rahman, 2021. "Social Impacts of a Mega-Dam Project as Perceived by Local, Resettled and Displaced Communities: A Case Study of Merowe Dam, Sudan," Economies, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-32, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:9:y:2021:i:4:p:140-:d:646359
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/9/4/140/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/9/4/140/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Austin Lord, 2016. "Citizens of a hydropower nation: Territory and agency at the frontiers of hydropower development in Nepal," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(1), pages 145-160, January.
    2. Ariel I. Ahram & J. Paul Goode, 2016. "Researching Authoritarianism in the Discipline of Democracy," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 97(4), pages 834-849, December.
    3. Bent Flyvbjerg, 2009. "Survival of the unfittest: why the worst infrastructure gets built--and what we can do about it," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 25(3), pages 344-367, Autumn.
    4. Verhoeven,Harry, 2015. "Water, Civilisation and Power in Sudan," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107061149, November.
    5. Flyvbjerg,Bent & Bruzelius,Nils & Rothengatter,Werner, 2003. "Megaprojects and Risk," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521009461, November.
    6. Ansar, Atif & Flyvbjerg, Bent & Budzier, Alexander & Lunn, Daniel, 2014. "Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 43-56.
    7. Benjamin Davis & Paul Winters & Thomas Reardon & Kostas Stamoulis, 2009. "Rural nonfarm employment and farming: household‐level linkages," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(2), pages 119-123, March.
    8. Rigg, Jonathan & Salamanca, Albert & Parnwell, Michael, 2012. "Joining the Dots of Agrarian Change in Asia: A 25 Year View from Thailand," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 1469-1481.
    9. Byoungki KIM, 2006. "Infrastructure Development for the Economic Development in Developing Countries: Lessons from Korea and Japan," GSICS Working Paper Series 11, Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, Kobe University.
    10. Robert M. Marsh, 2014. "Getting Ahead and Falling Behind: A Sociological Elaboration of Sen's Theory of Human Development," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(4), pages 1001-1021, December.
    11. Thomas, David H. L. & Adams, William M., 1999. "Adapting to Dams: Agrarian Change Downstream of the Tiga Dam, Northern Nigeria," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 919-935, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jin Huang & Ye Tian & Mengfei Song & Ribesh Khanal & Min An, 2022. "Three Gorges Project Resettles Employment Willingness and Behavior Mechanism: A Grounded Theory Approach," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, September.
    2. Owuor, Patrick Mbullo & Awuor, Diana Ross & Ngave, Emily Mwende & Young, Sera L., 2023. "“The people here knew how I used to live, but now I have to start again:” Lived experiences and expectations of the displaced and non-displaced women affected by the Thwake Multipurpose Dam constructi," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 338(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Al-Noor Abdullah & Sanzidur Rahman & Stephen Essex & James Benhin, 2020. "Economic Contributions of Mega-Dam Infrastructure as Perceived by Local and Displaced Communities: A Case Study of Merowe Dam, Sudan," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-25, June.
    2. Atif Ansar & Bent Flyvbjerg & Alexander Budzier & Daniel Lunn, 2016. "Does infrastructure investment lead to economic growth or economic fragility? Evidence from China," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 32(3), pages 360-390.
    3. Atif Ansar & Bent Flyvbjerg & Alexander Budzier & Daniel Lunn, 2016. "Big is Fragile: An Attempt at Theorizing Scale," Papers 1603.01416, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2017.
    4. Love, Peter E.D. & Ika, Lavagnon A. & Ahiaga-Dagbui, Dominic D., 2019. "On de-bunking ‘fake news’ in a post truth era: Why does the Planning Fallacy explanation for cost overruns fall short?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 397-408.
    5. Plakandaras, Vasilios & Papadimitriou, Theophilos & Gogas, Periklis, 2019. "Forecasting transportation demand for the U.S. market," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 195-214.
    6. Olav Torp & Ole Jonny Klakegg, 2016. "Challenges in Cost Estimation under Uncertainty—A Case Study of the Decommissioning of Barsebäck Nuclear Power Plant," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-21, October.
    7. Martijn Leijten, 2013. "Real-world decision-making on mega-projects: politics, bias and strategic behaviour," Chapters, in: Hugo Priemus & Bert van Wee (ed.), International Handbook on Mega-Projects, chapter 4, pages 57-82, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Brookes, Naomi J. & Locatelli, Giorgio, 2015. "Power plants as megaprojects: Using empirics to shape policy, planning, and construction management," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 57-66.
    9. Bent Flyvbjerg, 2013. "Why Mass Media Matter to Planning Research: The Case of Megaprojects," Papers 1304.1665, arXiv.org.
    10. Rebecca Vine, 2020. "Riskwork in the construction of Heathrow Terminal 2," SPRU Working Paper Series 2020-20, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    11. Natalya Sergeeva & Johan Ninan, 2023. "Comparisons as a discursive tool: shaping megaproject narratives in the United Kingdom," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 42(2), pages 197-211.
    12. Bent Flyvbjerg, 2014. "What You Should Know About Megaprojects, and Why: An Overview," Papers 1409.0003, arXiv.org.
    13. Jenkins, G. & Olasehinde-Williams, G. & Baurzhan, S., 2022. "Is there a net economic loss from employing reference class forecasting in the appraisal of hydropower projects?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    14. Ansar, Atif & Flyvbjerg, Bent & Budzier, Alexander & Lunn, Daniel, 2014. "Should we build more large dams? The actual costs of hydropower megaproject development," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 43-56.
    15. Lehtonen, Markku, 2019. "Ecological Economics and Opening up of Megaproject Appraisal: Lessons From Megaproject Scholarship and Topics for a Research Programme," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 148-156.
    16. Flyvbjerg, Bent & Ansar, Atif & Budzier, Alexander & Buhl, Søren & Cantarelli, Chantal & Garbuio, Massimo & Glenting, Carsten & Holm, Mette Skamris & Lovallo, Dan & Lunn, Daniel & Molin, Eric & Rønnes, 2018. "Five things you should know about cost overrun," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 174-190.
    17. Atif Ansar & Martin Pohlers, 2014. "Fluid populations, immobile assets: Synchronizing infrastructure investments with shifting demography," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 222-248, June.
    18. Bent Flyvbjerg & Eamonn Molloy, 2011. "Delusion, Deception and Corruption in Major Infrastructure Projects: Causes, Consequences and Cures," Chapters, in: Susan Rose-Ackerman & Tina Søreide (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Corruption, Volume Two, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Invernizzi, Diletta Colette & Locatelli, Giorgio & Brookes, Naomi & Davis, Allison, 2020. "Qualitative comparative analysis as a method for project studies: The case of energy infrastructure," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    20. Giorgio Locatelli, 2018. "Why are Megaprojects, Including Nuclear Power Plants, Delivered Overbudget and Late? Reasons and Remedies," Papers 1802.07312, arXiv.org.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jecomi:v:9:y:2021:i:4:p:140-:d:646359. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.