Review of the Epupa Dam Feasibility Study

A review by outside experts of the 1997 Epupa Dam Feasibility Study, coordinated by International Rivers and Earthlife Africa –– Namibia. Read International Rivers’s press release (Jan. 21, 1998) on this review.

Reviews and Background of Reviewers

• Commentary on the Environmental Assessment Report of the Feasibility Study on the Proposed Lower Cunene Hydropower Scheme, by Sid Harring
• A Review of the Epupa Draft Feasibility Study, by Steve Rivkin
• Comments on the Epupa Hydropower Project Feasibility Study, by Jamal Gore
• Epupa Dam and Reservoir Options - A Review of the Aquatic Ecological Aspects of the Draft Feasibility Report, by Kate Snaddon
• A Review of Hydrological Aspects of the Proposed Epupa Dam and Reservoir, Cunene River, Namibia, by Peter Willing
• A Review of Chapter 11, "Simulations", of the Feasibility Study for the Epupa Hydropower Scheme, Cunene River, Namibia, by Steve Rothert
• COMMENTS ON THE EPUPA DRAFT FEASIBILITY STUDY, by Hans Eggers

Brief backgrounds on the above authors

• Professor Sidney L Harring, is a professor at City University of New York School of Law. He is a lawyer and sociologist who has been active in the area of the rights of indigenous peoples for more than fifteen years, and a former Fulbright professor in Namibia. Among other works, he is the author of "The Constitution of Namibia and the Rights and Freedoms Guaranteed Communal Land Holder," South African Journal on Human Rights, Vol. 12, 1996

• Dr. Steve Rivkin is with the Department of Economics, Amherst College, Massachusetts, and has a special expertise in public finance and neo–classical cost–benefit analysis.

• Dr. Peter Willing is a principal of Water Resources Consulting in Bellingham, Washington, and a hydrologist with experience in hydroelectric system design and technical reviews of African river basin development plans.

• Dr. Bryan Davies, Associate Professor, Freshwater Ecologist and Senior Lecturer, Department of Zoology, Rondebosch, and Kate Snaddon, Freshwater Research Unit, Department of Zoology, Rondebosch, University of Cape Town, have studied the impacts of large dams on freshwater systems across southern Africa. Davies is the author of A Synthesis of the Ecological Functioning, Conservation and Management of South African River Ecosystems (Water Research Commission, 1993).

• Jamal Gore is the director of a non–profit renewable energy organization in Washington, DC; he was formerly with the US Environmental Protection Agency.

• Dr. H.C. Eggers, Institute for High Energy Physics, Vienna, has studied southern African energy alternatives for many years.

• Steve Rothert, International Rivers, Gaborone, Botswana, has a Master’s degree in Water Resources Management from the University of California, Berkeley and has worked on water management issues in southern Africa for a year. Rothert is a co-author of "Lessons Unlearned: Damming the Mekong River" (International Rivers, 1995).