Zeitschrift für Geographie und Naturkatastrophen
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Climate Change and Hydropower Development in the Eastern Himalaya: Emerging Conflicts in the Upper Tista Catchment of Sikkim, India

Navin Rai*, Vimal Khawas

Hydropower development-related issues have been on the rise in the Upper Tista catchment in recent times threatening the life and livelihood of local people and environmental settings. This paper assesses the controversies and tensions being created by the target of ambitious hydropower development plans in the name of climate mitigating energy in the Upper Tista catchment of Sikkim which is a part of the Eastern Himalayan region. However, in the face of climate change, hydropower projects have become a contested developmental paradigm in the Eastern Himalayan region of Sikkim. The paper highlights potential issues and conflicts between the climate mitigation approach through hydropower projects and the anti-hydropower forces of local people. The paper critically examines pre and post-hydropower development conflict along the Upper Tista river basin. The region has witnessed that the Hydropower Project has been undermining environmental and social security over the past years. The paper also analyses the different roles of dam-affected people, local politicians, NGOs, and dam developers in advocating and protesting the hydropower dam projects in the region.

Using an environmental security framework, the paper critically analyses the environmental risks and impacts being aggravated by combined forces of climate change and hydropower development in the upper Tista catchment of Sikkim Himalaya (India).