{"id":36643,"date":"2021-02-10T08:39:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T08:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=36643"},"modified":"2021-02-10T08:41:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T08:41:03","slug":"himalayas-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2021\/02\/10\/himalayas-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Hydroelectric power, dams and landslides in the Himalayas (and in other high mountain areas)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hydroelectric power, dams and landslides in the Himalayas<\/h4>\n

Controversy continues to rage in India as to the cause of the dreadful debris flow in Chamoli<\/a>, with some organisations continuing to claim that it was caused by a GLOF or by some sort of glacial collapse, despite strong evidence to the contrary.\u00a0 Meanwhile efforts continue to recover the remains of the victims of the landslide, with some sources suggesting that there may be about 200 fatalities.<\/p>\n

The macro-scale issue is however the management of risk in high mountain areas of the Himalayas, especially in the context of a warming climate, which is affecting this area particularly severely.\u00a0 At the time of the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Vajont dam disaster in Italy, I wrote a paper outlining the poor track record of landslide management in hydroelectric power schemes in high mountain areas in poor countries, especially in the Himalayas and in China<\/a>.\u00a0 My central point was that the risk of landslides was insufficiently appreciated, and that slope failures were being poorly managed, in many dam projects in these mountain areas.<\/p>\n

Over seven years on, significant landslide accidents continue to occur in hydroelectric power projects in the Himalayas and elsewhere.\u00a0 Notable examples have included Mangdechu in Bhutan<\/a>, Taining County in China<\/a>,\u00a0Upper Madi in Nepal<\/a> and the massive, ongoing problems at Punatsangchhu-I in Bhutan<\/a>.\u00a0 There are many more that I have not featured here.\u00a0 Away from Asia, the extraordinary and deeply troubled Hidroituango project in Colombia is notable<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The events at Chamoli adds another, dreadful example to this roll call.\u00a0 There appears to be two hydroelectric schemes involved in the Chamoli debris flow, of which the most significant in the 520 MW Tapovan Vishnugad scheme:-<\/p>\n

\"The

The Tapovan Vishnugad HEP site in the Himalayas after the Chamoli debris flow. Image from PTI via India Today<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

The appears to have been a deeply troubled scheme even before the landslide. Descriptions of this project indicate that the expected completion date was in 2012<\/a>, but at the time of the landslide it was still under construction.\u00a0 \u00a0Problems seen to be associated with very difficult geological conditions, leading to slow progress in the tunnelling operations, including significant groundwater ingress<\/a>. In 2014 there were reports of at least three occasions in which the TBM had become trapped<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But as the image above shows, the problems with this scheme are now much more serious.\u00a0 Aside from the damage to the infrastructure, which looks to be extremely severe (see the satellite images in an article in India Today<\/a>), there will be a need to assess properly the likelihood of another event of this type in the life of the dam.\u00a0 In a warming climate this cannot be precluded.<\/p>\n

Back in 2013 I noted that (Petley 2013):<\/p>\n

In the coming years a very large amount of dam construction is planned around the world as the need for hydroelectric power increases for both social and environmental reasons.\u00a0 Major hydroelectric power projects are planned or proposed in high mountain areas on all of the inhabited continents.\u00a0 However, the global centre for large-scale dam and reservoir projects in the next two decades will inevitably be South and East Asia, with the steep valleys of the Himalayas being responsible for a substantial proportion of that planned activity.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

It is clear that a very large number of new projects are planned in this region in the coming years.\u00a0 In most cases these projects will be constructed in areas that have been subject to high levels of landslide activity in the past, such that palaeo-landslide deposits are likely to be extensive.\u00a0 Landslide activity under contemporary climatic conditions is likely to be high, and most of this area is also subject to occasional large or very large earthquakes, which are likely to be associated with extensive landslide activity.\u00a0 Finally, the effects of climate change in this area may be increased precipitation intensity , which may increase landslide activity in coming years.\u00a0 Thus, without careful management there is a strong potential for continued landslide impacts on large dam and reservoir projects.<\/em><\/p>\n

Since the Vajont disaster, the dam and reservoir industry has very successfully identified and mitigated landslides, albeit at times at very high cost.\u00a0 A similar level of action is now required to address landslides occurring at and around dam construction sites and in the camps housing the workers, especially in East and South Asia.\u00a0 To do so will require concerted effort from planners, funding agencies, regulators and construction companies.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sadly, the lessons from Vajont, and from many subsequent landslide events in and around large dam projects, have not been learnt.\u00a0 Until they are we will see many failures, with high levels of loss.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

Reference<\/h4>\n

Petley, D.N. 2013. Global losses from landslides associated with dams and reservoirs. In: Genevois, R. and Prestininzi, A. (eds) International Conference on Vajont \u2013 1963-2013. Thoughts and analyses after 50 since the catastrophic landslide<\/em>.\u00a0 Italian Journal of Engineering and Environment \u2013 Book Series N. 6, pp 63-72.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hydroelectric power, dams and the growing list of landslide accidents in the Himalayas (and in other high mountain areas) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":36646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[740],"tags":[71,30613,469,18,913,72],"class_list":["post-36643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-landslide-costs","tag-dam","tag-dams","tag-featured","tag-himalayas","tag-hydroelectric","tag-south-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}