In Spain the Socialist Party Government has abolished a controversial plan to divert the Ebro River. The previous conservative Cabinet had already started the project to transfer 100bn litres of water a year from the northern river to the more arid south. The plan approved three years ago aimed to build more than 100 dams and hundreds of kilometres of irrigation channels to transfer the water from the Ebro River. Everyone can understand that it's more logical to build a desalination plant close to where the water is needed than bringing water through a 900km (600 miles) pipeline, it was argued.

In US, prior to the origin of Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933, in 1916 the federal government had acquired the site and began plans to construct a dam there. The dam was meant to generate electricity that was needed to produce explosives for the war effort, but World War I ended before the facilities could be used. During the 1920s Congress debated over what was to be done with the property.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt backed a plan to develop the Tennessee River Valley in 1933 to improve navigability on the Tennessee River which ran through seven states. The boldest authority was given a mandate to improve " the economic and social well-being of the people living in said river basin." under Tennessee Valley Authority Act.

In USSR, diversion of the Siberian rivers in and drying up of Aral Sea is a parody of Progress. Three decades ago, government planners (of USSR) diverted the rivers that flow into the sea in order to irrigate farmland. As a result, the sea has shrunk to half its original size, stranding ships on dry land. The seawater has tripled in salt content and become polluted, killing all 24 native species of fish and the thick desert forests, once unique to the Aral Sea's have all but vanished.

The story of the Aral Sea is indded a parable of 21st century development and industrialization. The river that runs along Uzbekistan's southern border and feeds into the Aral Sea, the Amu Darya was bled into Uzbekistan's vast deserts which became arable but a fragile land. The diverting of the Amu Darya was one of the unique czarist policies which was continued. In the 1960s the Aral Sea began to disappear. "When God loved us he gave us the Amu Darya," one poet wrote. "When he ceased to love us, he sent us Russian engineers." Most experts estimate by 2010, the Aral Sea will be completely gone.

In China, the on-going multi-billion US dollar South-North Water Diversion Project to link China's four water systems, namely the Yangtze, Yellow, Huaihe and Haihe rivers entails investment exceeding that of the Three Gorges Hydropower Project. The project began in 2002. The plan is to divert 13.4 billion cubic meters (12 trillion gallons) of water a year from the Yangtze River in China's wetter south to arid areas in the north. The first supplies are to reach the eastern province of Shandong in 2007, and Beijing by 2010. But the project, the total cost of which is projected at $60 billion (euro46.3 billion), is already over budget. It aims to improve water resources in north and northwest China and ease long-term water shortages.

The China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corporation as per its announcement reported in China Daily on January 12, 2005 will begin construction work for a ship lift in fall 2005. The ship lift, which is 120 meters by 18 meters by 3.5 meters, will be biggest of its kind in the world. Upon completion in 2009,it will be able to accommodate the passage of a passenger-cum-cargo ship with 3,000 DWT (dead weight tonnages) a time or a bargewith 1,500 DWT a time, said corporate sources. Ships passing through the Three Gorges Project, which is being built on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, have used a shiplock there since June 2003. But the process takes three hours for a single trip.

When the ship lift is put in place, it will only take about 40 minutes for ships and boats to pass through the dam. For the time being, Chinese and German experts are still working on the designing of the ship lift that will be erected on the northern bank of the Yangtze River. Launched in 1993, the Three Gorges Project is the biggest watercontrol facility in the world. The mammoth project, which is also capable of power generation, will be constructed in three phases.

Preparations and actual construction in the first phase were carried out between 1993 and 1997. The Yangtze was dammed at the Three Gorges area for the first time on November 8, 1997. In accordance with an original plan, the Three Gorges Project, with a budget of 180 billion yuan (approximately 21.7 billion US dollars), will have 26 generators with a combined generating capacity amounting to 18.2 million kw and be able to produce 84.7 billion kwh of hydro-electric power annually when it is completed in 2009.

Three Gorges Project which if completed will slow the Yangtze river's flow, backing up water and concentrating sewage and other pollutants in its 600 kilometre-long reservoir. Three Gorges proponents have left the cost of controlling pollution in the dam reservoir out of the official project budget.

Besides these China is planning for a huge hydropower dam over river Brahmaputra (known as "Yarlung Zangbo" in Tibet and Jamuna in Bangladesh).

In South Asia dams have been ecologicall destructive but the policymakers still pursue the same policy.

In 21st century, water is a people's policy issue as well as a foreign policy issue therefore the basis of water resources managment must be basin-wide consideration in the planning process rather than on a specific list of projects. Planning here means 'participatory planning'. The shift from efforts to 'control' floods mindset to greater understanding of flood management and mitigation is called for. The idea of 'bigger the better' is ooutdated. Shifting the focus from development of large-scale projects to small scale sustainable water development and management projects is the only sane option.

It would be apt for environmentalists across the globe to join hands to campaign for the alternatives of large dams and expose the intrgues to hide the value of viable alternatives for both power and irrigation.