Hydropower and Sino-Indian Hydropolitics Along the Yarlung-Tsangpo-Brahmaputra

Rampini, Costanza

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-59361-2_12

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Despite projected increases under increased monsoon precipitation, anthropogenic factors may yet dominate the system-scale responses and drive sediment loads to be considerably lower. Specifically, plans across South Asia for hydropower development and interbasinal watershed management portend major reservoir construction and water diversions in the coming century 33,93 . Modeling of the impact of these activities on the river basins suggests moderate (30%) to extreme (88%) decreases in sediment discharge under a range of plausible rivermanagement scenarios 33,39 (Fig.…”

Section: Anthropogenic Threats To Future Sediment Deliverymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Existing studies focus on the impact of India's National River Linking Project (NRLP) and hydropower projects in Nepal, both of which disproportionately affect the Ganges river system 33,39 . No study has yet assessed the potential impact of China's proposed Motuo hydropower project that would be a run-of-the-river dam of the Yarlung Tsangpo 93,94 , which is a primary water and sediment source estimated to supply 50% of the Brahmaputra's downstream sediment load.…”

Section: Anthropogenic Threats To Future Sediment Deliverymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sediment delivery to sustain the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta under climate change and anthropogenic impacts

et al. 2023

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The principal nature-based solution for offsetting relative sea-level rise in the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta is the unabated delivery, dispersal, and deposition of the rivers’ ~1 billion-tonne annual sediment load. Recent hydrological transport modeling suggests that strengthening monsoon precipitation in the 21st century could increase this sediment delivery 34-60%; yet other studies demonstrate that sediment could decline 15-80% if planned dams and river diversions are fully implemented. We validate these modeled ranges by developing a comprehensive field-based sediment budget that quantifies the supply of Ganges-Brahmaputra river sediment under varying Holocene climate conditions. Our data reveal natural responses in sediment supply comparable to previously modeled results and suggest that increased sediment delivery may be capable of offsetting accelerated sea-level rise. This prospect for a naturally sustained Ganges-Brahmaputra delta presents possibilities beyond the dystopian future often posed for this system, but the implementation of currently proposed dams and diversions would preclude such opportunities.

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Section: Anthropogenic Threats To Future Sediment Deliverymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Anthropogenic Threats To Future Sediment Deliverymentioning

confidence: 99%

Sediment delivery to sustain the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta under climate change and anthropogenic impacts

et al. 2023

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“…The problem perhaps lies with the discourse analysis using Q methodology and the view of securitisation that is over-reliant on discursive actions rather than micro-level security practices. Furthermore, research on the securitisation of water resources between India and China limits themselves to the case of the Brahmaputra River (for instance: Rampini, 2021 ; Sahu & Mohan, 2021 ). While recent developments on the Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra make it necessary for the study of securitisation, there are other avenues in the region that illustrate the securitisation of water resources (discussed in the following sections).…”

Section: Securitisation Theory: Practices and Professionalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practicing security: securitisation of transboundary rivers by hydrocrats in Himalayan South Asia

Vasani

2023

GeoJournal

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This paper examines the intersection of regional geopolitics and the governance of transboundary rivers using the case studies of multipurpose reservoirs in Himalayan South Asia. It uncovers the various ways Indian hydrocracy uses its institutional and technical expertise to strengthen India’s centrality in Nepal’s water and hydropower sectors. The practices of security undertaken by the hydrocrats are classified as structural, institutional, and statutory acts. By focusing on practices of an epistemic community like hydrocrats, this paper addresses longstanding weaknesses of the securitisation theory of being elitist and ignoring the agency of mid-level bureaucrats. It also highlights the constructivist nature of international politics. The findings contribute empirically to securitisation theory’s ‘Paris School’ of thought.

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“…My goal was to understand the extent to which households living along the Brahmaputra River were prepared to live with increasingly harsher floods, caused by the accelerated melting of Himalayan glaciers (Apurv et al 2015, Alam et al 2016, Mohammed et al 2017. At that time, the most difficult conversations centered around the role of hydropower development in Arunachal Pradesh in worsening floods downstream in Assam (Vagholikar and Das 2010, Baruah 2012, Sino-Indian hydropolitics along the Brahmaputra river basin (Rampini 2021b) and dams mimicking the expected effects of climate change in the region (Rampini 2021a). When I returned to Assam in 2019, after several years of absence, I was surprised to see that there was a new and even larger elephant in the room amongst the local climate adaptation elite: the National Registry of Citizens (NRC).…”

Section: We Don't Do Things We Talk About My Request To the Undp Is T...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mountains of inequality: encountering the politics of climate adaptation across the Himalaya

Chakraborty,

Rampini,

Sherpa

2023

E&S

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There has been a widespread call for the development of transformative adaptation knowledge and strategies in the Himalayan region because of the intensifying onset of climate change impacts. But such transformative thinking is absent in much of Himalayan climate knowledge production, which builds on environmental deterministic and techno-managerial renditions of exceptional precarity; advocates for an increase in the scientific and expert driven projects on the ground; and remains rooted in the scalar realities of the nation-state. This paper contributes to the rich scholarship that counterbalances depoliticized renditions of climate change adaptation, by presenting "everyday stories of adaptation" that have emerged from the authors' work alongside Himalayan communities. In this work we ask, who is the subject in Himalayan climate adaptation discourse and policies? And how can their stories help us envision an adaptation praxis, which challenges regional narratives of crisis and provides alternatives to climate reductionist thinking/planning, by foregrounding the intersectionality and plurality of communities and ecologies? The stories come from three parts of the Himalaya: Uttarakhand, Khumbu, and Assam, and highlight the daily labor for adaptation and its mercurial relationship with the labor for survival. We find that intertwined with changing climate-society relationships are, historical caste privileges and changing generational relationships to land; the complicated engagements between indigeneity, communal sovereignty, and exclusionary institutional mandates; and life with ethnoreligious othering in an aqueous and geopolitically fluid borderland. Together these stories witness the relational social-ecological worlds of regional inhabitants, challenging their powerless and pejorative depictions through climate reductive framings. We conclude with a set of objectives to enable more hopeful and just adaptation futures.

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Hydropower and Sino-Indian Hydropolitics Along the Yarlung-Tsangpo-Brahmaputra

Cited by 6 publications

References 13 publications

Sediment delivery to sustain the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta under climate change and anthropogenic impacts

Sediment delivery to sustain the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta under climate change and anthropogenic impacts

Practicing security: securitisation of transboundary rivers by hydrocrats in Himalayan South Asia

Mountains of inequality: encountering the politics of climate adaptation across the Himalaya

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