Abstract

The twentieth century was the era of big water projects. Massive dams and irrigation works, large scale public power projects sprung up everywhere in the world. The fruits of industrialization had produced new wealth and political organization. Engineering on a large scale seemed like be the answer to environmental problems. But mobilizing the resources needed to re-engineer a river basin or a swamp requires lots of resources and imposes costs and benefits throughout the economy. People who stand to gain or lose can be expected to react politically: to mobilize support or to protest or complain, to vote for or against their leaders or simply to migrate to other places. This paper aims to describe some aspects of the politics of big water projects in the twentieth century.