Hydroelectric dams: Loi is inadequate?

Hydropower is considered one of the cleanest and cheapest sources of renewable energy available for large-scale production. However, if analyzed carefully, environmental damage is quite large, sometimes more harmful than good.

Before, during and after the construction of the dam, natural damage is proportional to the size of the dam. The word often exists but the risk of accidents at any time.

Hydroelectric dams affect the environment more than people think. (Photo: Internet).

Before dam construction

First of all, the proper location to build hydropower dams is usually mountainous areas with rivers flowing through. There is a forest ecosystem with plants and animals and people living in the area. To build dams and reservoirs must clear a large area of ​​forest, including surrounding forests. It is this that will destroy most of nature, losing the long-lived habitat of plants and animals, including endemic and rare species.

The construction of dams and lakes has not forced the local people to relocate. Their lives were turned upside down. Their culture and lifestyle cannot be preserved as before. In most cases, the new place is not as convenient as where they live and compensation cannot compensate for the damage and losses they suffer. All have to start from scratch on new lands with very difficult conditions and cannot be solved quickly.

When the dam works

At the construction site, the river does not exist anymore, a giant artificial lake appears. With the condition of standing water of new lakes, it will attract insects that spread disease. People living near the dam will have to deal with a major health risk.

Because dams are often built on mountains, many landslides and landslides have occurred. When suddenly building dams to hold water at a height of hundreds, sometimes thousands of meters above the sea surface will be seriously affected. This happened to the Vajont dam in 1963, causing 2,000 people to die from landslides.

Recovery is harder than construction

Damage caused by deforestation, digging water reservoirs makes Nature hard to recover. When ecology is destroyed, it takes hundreds of years to rebuild a new balance and can also be permanently destroyed.

But people still prevent river embankment to meet the needs of the industry. How to have an alternative before we destroy the rivers is what strategists must consider in a comprehensive way.