By Matt McGrath  Environment correspondent

A new study says that many large-scale hydropower projects in Europe and the US have been disastrous for the environment.
Dozens of these dams are being removed every year, with many considered dangerous and uneconomic.
But the authors fear that the unsustainable nature of these projects has not been recognized in the developing world.
Thousands of new dams are now being planned for rivers in Africa and Asia.
Hydropower is the source of 71% of renewable energy throughout the world and has played a major role in the development …

In an article in the Journal "Trends in Ecology & Evolution" twenty-four experts in conservation research and practice, ecology, economics, policy, and science communication  reviewed 117 potential issues and identified 15 priority topics following a wide consultation. They followed a Delphi like process to score and identify the most important.
This is the ninth such annual "horizon scan" to identify emerging issues. Themes among selected topics include new mechanisms driving the emergence and geographic expansion of diseases, innovative biotechnologies, reassessments of global change, and one of them highlights the development …

An article “Harmonizing World Heritage and Climate Measures. The Case of Lake Baikal” by Sergey Shapkhaev, Director, Buriat Regional Union for Baikal and Eugene Simonov, Coordinator of the Rivers without Boundaries Coalition and Researcher at Daursky Biosphere Reserve was published in 2018 World Heritage Watch Report.
 

I. "Climate Measures" vs Natural Values – conventions lack coordination
World Heritage sites’ OUVs are affected and threatened by many climate-related threats: floods, droughts, hurricanes, etc. However, it is often overlooked that haphazard human activities allegedly directed towards mitigation and adaptation to climate change also may …

 
More statistics on energy development became available right before the Earth Day. Recently we published a post that mentioned  the 80% China’s share in 2017 hydropower investment world wide. The figure seemed exaggerated to us, so we looked into all sources available for last decade to confirm the trend. The graph below shows that since 2007 an average annual hydropower capacity installed in China represented 55% of that installed world wide. If overseas projects with China’s financiers\contractors added to that, then china’s “share” of the global hydropower installation goes up …

Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition (RwB) and Greenpeace Russia
Submission to the World Heritage Center and the IUCN. April 2018
Concerns regarding implementation of WHC decisions on Lake Baikal and recommendations for the 2018 World Heritage Committee Decision
Lake Baikal is undergoing serious environmental crisis. In 2017 among the good news was revocation by the Ministry of Natural Resources of the mining license for Kholodnenskoye Zinc deposit, which was the major step forward in ensuring lasting protection of the World Heritage Site. However, this is the only truly good news from …

The International Finance Corporation (part of the World Bank Group) has published the IFC Handbook on good practice in environmental flows for hydropower projects.

The book written by top experts in the field of E-flows and edited by the IFC describes what the World Bank Group expects to be a good practice in environmental flows planning and management in hydropower projects both for single-dam, cascade of hydropower dams and at hydropower development\operations at basin-wide scale. The manual is written for investors, agencies, project managers and decision makers allowing them to …