text: Dam Project (dam + project)
  China has started the construction of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP; its magnitude is even greater than the Three Gorges Dam Project), to deliver about 45 billion m3 of water from the Yangtze River to the water starving North China Plain. Is the project needed given the multiple socioeconomic, engineering, and environmental challenges and controversies it is facing and the effects of demand management programs China has been implementing in recent years? This article, through the analysis of the water shortage problems in the North China Plain and the Yellow River basin, demonstrates that considering China's current economic base, technological capacity, and income levels, the SNWTP, while facing multiple challenges, is still needed to relieve the water deficit problems in the North China Plain. However, the SNWTP is only a partial solution to North China's chronic water shortage problem. China should continue to actively implement and enforce its demand management programs nationwide to ensure that its limited fresh water resources are used to meet the multiple needs of human societies and ecosystems in a socially responsible, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable way. [source]
  Government and NGO partnership in managing community-based water resources in Vietnam: a case study of Thai Long Dam Project
  BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 2 2002
  Economic reform policy called ,Doi Moi' introduced by the Government of Vietnam at the end of 1980s opened new opportunities of community-based involvement in the policy and decision-making at various local levels. Innovations such as decentralization of decision-making power to lower administrative level, and recognition of the local community's role in managing their natural resources, e.g. transfer of irrigated water management right to local communities, were introduced. Significantly, this new institutional framework also facilitated greater civil society involvement in Vietnam. The Water Users Cooperative (WUC) set up through the Thai Long Dam Project mobilized local farmers to participate and manage their local resources in a sustainable manner. Through this process, the WUC was able to strengthen itself as a civil society institution that mediates between the individual and the state, as well as a forum for increasing government responsiveness and accountability. The success of the WUC of the Thai Long Project implies that the Vietnamese civil society is playing a more active role in the decision-making process. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment [source]