Livelihoods Of Relocated People Affected By Dam Construction In SLA

Although hydropower resources are clean and renewable energy,the large number of dam-induced involuntary population resettlement has also caused widespread concern around the world.China was engaged in building hydropower dams over the past decades and brought some serious challenges of reservoir resettlement.In an attempt to deal with these problems,a series of policies and guidelines concerning involuntary resettlement were developed at national level.In particular,China issued the New Resettlement Policy on Post-relocation Support for Reservoir Projects and updated the Regulations on Compensation for Land Acquisition and Resettlement on Large and Medium-sized Water Conservancy and Hydroelectric Projects in 2006.The two policies have increased compensation standard greatly and implemented some new resettlement and compensation modes.However.Nuozhadu dam as the first and largest hydropower station on the main stream of Lancang River under the implemented of long-term compensation policy,little is known about the effects on the livelihoods of displaced population.This study takes Nuozhadu reservoir as a study case.Qualitative and quantitative data were collected by mixing semi-structured interviews and questionnaire methods.Then,the changes of settlers’ livelihood capital pre-and post-resettlement were analyzed in the sustainable livelihoods framework(SLA).The evaluation system was also used to assess the Livelihood Capital of settlers after resettlement.Finally,settlers’ livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes were investigated to examine and evaluate the adaptability of different resettlement and compensation modes.The main research findings are as follows:(1)On the livelihood capital,pre-and post-resettlement,human capital changed little and social capital and nature capital decreases,whereas,both physical capital and financial capital increases significantly.In 4 resettlement modes,human capital and physical capital were almost same for settlers,but there is a difference between social capital,nature capital and financial capital.(2)On the value of livelihood capital,the value of physical capital is highest,followed by social capital,human capital and financial capital,nature capital is lowest after resettlement.In 4 resettlement modes,settlers from far-relocated with long-termcompensation resettlement have the highest value of livelihood capital,followed by those from near-relocated and far-relocated with agricultural resettlement,and near-relocated with long-term compensation is lowest.In a word,far-relocated settlers compare with near-relocated,their financial capital and social capital are at a disadvantage,but physical capital has a slight superiority.While long-term compensation resettlement settlers compare with the agricultural resettlement,their nature capital is at a disadvantage,but human capital has a slight superiority.(3)On the livelihood strategies,pre-and post-resettlement,it changed from agricultural and agricultural-based type into nonagricultural and nonagricultural-based type.The income source of settlers was mainly from agriculture,including crop or cash crop and animal husbandry before resettlement.After resettlement,non-agricultural income is settlers’ major source of income,which includes labor service,business and long-term compensation.(4)On the balance of revenue and expenditure,while settler households’ average annual income improves significantly,their average annual expenditure also increases.It is consistent in the 4 resettlement modes,revenue and expenditure of settlers from near-relocated with agricultural resettlement are highest,followed by those from far-relocated and near-relocated with long-term compensation resettlement,and far-relocated with agricultural resettlement is lowest.(5)On the cognition of current living conditions,fewer settlers dissatisfied with current life and do not have faith in the future.Most settlers consider that less means of livelihood is the greatest problem now and what they hope most is loan or financial support.In the 4 resettlement modes,settlers from far-relocated with long-term compensation resettlement are most satisfied with the current life and most confident about the future,followed by those from far-relocated and near-relocated with agricultural resettlement,and the last is near-relocated with long-term compensation.