Brahmaputra River

The already-fraught relationship between China and India is becoming even more tense over Beijing’s plans to build a “super hydropower dam” in Tibet. 

Dibrugarh’s geography – it is a mix of flood plains, lakes, swamps, sandbars and highlands – makes it vulnerable to flooding.

The plan to divert the waters of Brahmaputra would affect over 140 million people who are dependent on the river.

Around half-a-million people have been impacted by the floods.

Climate goals and local interests are driving Tibet’s hydropower boom, which will have implications far beyond China.

A recent study shows the risk climate change poses to China-India relations, but also how the two powers can cooperate to mitigate the impact.

If a new hydropower project at the Brahmaputra’s Great Bend comes about, northeastern India will have to go to sleep with the possibility of breach of mammoth sized water reservoirs over its head at any time.

The plan to build a hydropower dam across the Yarlung Zangbo has worried many in India, who say the country could be adversely affected.

Floods are a perennial problem in the northeastern Indian state, but the government has yet to find an effective mitigation strategy.

New measures can work to prevent disaster in this region.

At the dawn of a new era of building dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo, countless lives and ecosystems are being risked in the name of “development” and geopolitics.