ESG RISK 4: Infrastructure and Community Safety
Overview
ESG Risk 4 - Infrastructure and Community Safety evaluates public safety risks associated with hydropower infrastructure, especially dams. Key early-stage considerations include geological conditions, natural hazards (like landslides, earthquakes, and extreme weather), hydrological factors, and populations at risk in the event of dam failure. These assessments must account for future climate scenarios and potential cascading impacts. Failing to address safety risks can result in regulatory rejection, community opposition, difficulty securing financing, and increased long-term costs for risk management. Proactive safety planning is essential for project viability and community trust.
Additional Guidance
Sources of information that can help inform ratings for ESG Risk 4 - Infrastructure and Community Safety include:
HSA How-to Guide for Hydropower Infrastructure Safety;
Regulatory requirements for the jurisdiction;
Relevant design standards for the infrastructure;
Consideration of preliminary geological and hydrological information, including future climate scenarios, with respect to infrastructure safety requirements and risks;
Topographic map analysis, field visits, and local knowledge to evaluate natural hazard risks;
Census and other administrative data to evaluate the population at risk of dam failure.
Site inspections (if possible) and local knowledge on the state of other infrastructure upstream and downstream of the proposed project option.
Useful web resources relating to dam safety include:
International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) for guidelines, standards, and best practices for dam safety worldwide. ICOLD publications cover various aspects of dam safety and design;
The World Bank Good Practice Note on Dam Safety.
A useful website on disaster prevention and risk reduction is PreventionWeb, which is a global knowledge sharing platform for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and resilience.
Actions that could reduce the risk of a project option might include to ensure that dam safety requirements and standards are factored into design of both the permanent infrastructure and temporary infrastructure (e.g. coffer dams) at an early stage, including for future climate scenarios.
A key opportunity in the area of infrastructure and community safety for hydropower projects is to anticipate the risks early. Early consideration is highly advantageous, as mitigation measures included at the design stage can be very cost-effective. Characterising the problems, paying for damages, and retrofitting solutions can be highly expensive and damage the reputation of the developer/operator.
Further opportunities lie in addressing legacy impacts, i.e. additional infrastructure unrelated to the hydropower development but that can escalate any safety issue if it is also affected. Addressing these may provide benefits for hydropower operations, and/or the benefits may be for the broader local communities.
Additionally, there will be significant opportunities to improve emergency awareness, notifications, warnings and response facilities and processes alongside development and operation of the project. These can be a considerable project benefit where such facilities and processes will benefit from uplift.
