An analysis on the reviewed results conducted by the dam preliminary-review council for timely launch and completion of dam projects (2013~2017)

Abstract

Due to the fierce opposition of stakeholders such as local residents, NGOs, and local governments, many dam projects have been canceled in the past, and still, a lot of new dam projects have been canceled or delayed. For the purpose of solving this problem, the government amended the law so that the dam projects can be put forward only after resolving all conflicts with stakeholders, and the Dam Preliminary-Review Council (DPRC) was launched as the conflict management organization. This council has to deal with technological, economic, environmental and social issues to examine dam projects, among them conflict management is addressed in the social issue. Although it was expected that the dam projects would no longer be canceled or suspended, the results so far are very disappointing. From 2013 to 2017, nine dam projects have been proposed, among them, only three projects could get positive reports, one of them was canceled, and five projects have been still delayed. This result shows that technological, economic and environmental issues are as important as social issues and at the same time it means that the uncertainty in DPRC’s examination is larger than before. Thus, this paper aims to prepare perfect dam project proposals in advance. The research paper aims to show what factors were significant that cause success and failure in the examination process of the council. Likewise, this paper will suggest a way to draw a positive report from DPRC. At the same time the final performance of this paper will be suggested as a kind of practical manual, so this research will be of interest to practitioners who are preparing dam projects, at the same time this research may have important implications for the upcoming dam projects which are essential to K-water’s sustainable development.