Assessment and Estimation of Environmental Costs of Kasilian Dam

Abstract

Despite the benefits of large dams, there are still concerns about their real benefits and environmental costs. Effects on social and natural ecosystems could be one of the most important external costs of dams’ construction. The aim of this study is to identify the environmental and social costs of Kasilian hydropower Dam in Mazandaran Province, Iran, to reduce the negative consequences and move towards sustainable environmental development. In order to estimate the environmental costs, it is necessary to calculate the damaging and negative effects as well as the benefits of dam construction such that to calculate the net profit. Thus, this paper is one of the first efforts focusing on identifying the most important social and environmental impacts of dams’ construction. Using the HECAM (Hydropower’s Environmental Costs Analysis Model) software and considering the economic, social and environmental indicators, we estimated the benefit ratio to the cost of Kasilian hydroelectric dam to be about 3.5. We also found that land loss and electricity generation have the highest cost and the greatest profit associated with the lack of greenhouse gases, the water and electricity sale.