River Basin Development

Abstract

While river basins have been important sites of human activity for thousands of years, it was not until the early twentieth century that development began to transform basin ecosystems and spur regional development. Supported by technological and engineering advances and underpinned by an unquestioned faith in humankind's right to control nature for its own benefit, river basin development was carried forth with little recognition of the ecological, social, economic, and cultural benefits of free-flowing rivers. As a consequence, river basins around the world suffer from significant environmental degradation. Large-scale, multipurpose basin development was pioneered in the Global North (in the US in particular), where, in the 1930s, basins such the Tennessee, Columbia, and Colorado underwent massive transformations. In the post-World War II era, this model was imposed on and adopted by the countries of the Global South. In both cases, river basin development facilitated commercialization of agriculture, settlement in floodplains, and industrialization. In other words, basin development promoted modernization and regional development. In the latter decades of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first century, concern for the ecological and social impacts of river basin development have grown. As a result, basin development schemes and management plans – and the narrow vision of modernization upon which they are often based – tend to be more politicized and contested than was the case in the early and mid-twentieth century. Today, in response to critiques, sustainable development and integrated river basin management are key concepts guiding river basin–society relations. While advances in sustainable management have been significant, many challenges remain. This is especially the case in transboundary river basins, where the disjunction between sovereign states and ecosystems complicates the sharing and management of natural resources.