How a strategic environmental assessment could help change Myanmar's approach to hydro

How a strategic environmental assessment could help change Myanmar's
approach to hydro

Optimising project siting and configuration are the most effective
environmental and social risk avoidance measures in hydropower development.
Siting is often decided very early on in project development, primarily on a
project-by project basis.

What the hydropower sector needs is to move away from a project-by-project
to a landscape-level approach that will assess and manage cumulative impacts
of multiple projects across a watershed.

Myanmar's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation and
Ministry of Electricity and Energy are leading a country-wide Strategic
Environmental Assessment (SEA) for the hydropower sector to achieve this.
The SEA is looking at environmental and social values from a broad
river-basin perspective to understand the entire river system upstream and
downstream. If we understand these values within an entire basin, we can
determine potential impacts and better mitigate risks.

The SEA focusses on the main river basins in Myanmar that have hydropower
potential, including the Ayeyarwady-Chindwin, Thalnwin, Sittaung,
Tanintharyi and Rakhine coastal basins, Mekong, Kaladan, and Myit Mo
Hka/Bago.

The SEA is currently in the early part of Stage 1 of three stages and the
team is consulting diverse stakeholders in each river basin to gain an
understanding of the environmental and social hotspots that need to be
protected during hydropower planning. This information will then be layered
with technical data to help project planners better understand, at the
earliest possible stages of planning, how to avoid major environmental and
social impacts.

Project proposals pursued by the Myanmar government following the SEA
process will be based on a stronger understanding of potential environmental
and social impacts as the SEA will indicate levels of sensitivities.
Information on sustainability with project feasibility data, and
determination of bankability of projects will then enable a better
understanding of a project's overall potential.

Till now, the sustainability element was not considered in project choices.
Once completed, the SEA will contribute to better understanding of the
balance between economic development needs and the sustainable use and
protection of Myanmar's natural resources and social diversity.

To put the SEA in context, Myanmar is in its earliest phases of policy and
guideline development for the hydropower sector. There are limited policies,
procedures, and plans in Myanmar to drive sustainability linking water,
food, and energy objectives, while there is strong opposition to large
hydropower projects in the country.

The SEA could be a milestone for the hydropower sector, leading to the
development of integrated policy and plans to guide the sustainability of
the hydropower sector within the context of the energy mix that the country
wishes to develop.

Scaling out to a country-wide perspective through the SEA process will give
a broad understanding of the baseline environmental and social situation of
the country. However, deeper knowledge is needed at the basin scale to
address the cumulative impacts from multiple hydropower projects. Many of
these impacts go beyond what a single developer can resolve.

The SEA provides an opportunity for the public and private sector to come
together to collectively try to resolve issues through informed
decision-making based on stakeholder engagement and gender aspects of
hydropower development, while building capacity along the way.

The outcomes of the SEA will hopefully enable an approach that considers the
importance of basin-wide cumulative impact assessment and management for
future hydropower development in Myanmar.

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Link to Original Article:
http://asian-power.com/environment/commentary/how-strategic-environmental-as
sessment-could-help-change-myanmars-approach-hy

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com