Yunnan's (PR China) rapidly expanding small hydropower sector. Actors, conflicts, environmental impacts and socio-economic consequences

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To sustain its impressive economic growth, PR China is aggressively developing its energy sector. Regenerative energy, mainly hydropower, plays a major role in its present and future energy sector strategy. Yunnan province in the southwest of PR China plays a key role due to its (physio) geographic suitability for hydropower development. The extreme rapid development of hydropower schemes is mainly based on controversial large dams, but also on the rapid development of small scale hydropower projects (SHPs, up to 50 MW capacity as per Chinese categorization). This development makes Yunnan one of the key suppliers of electric energy in PR China, supplying the economic centres of both eastern and southern China as well as Southeast Asia (e.g. Thailand, Vietnam). This rapid expansion of the hydropower sector in Yunnan is falling into one of the richest bio-, geo- and ethnic diverse regions within PR China, potentially creating significant environmental and social conflict if not managed carefully. Within this setting the project analyses human-environmental interactions in the context of Yunnan’s dynamic hydropower sector. Based on a four-columned political-ecological approach this dynamic is studied in a multi-level analysis on province (Yunnan) as well as local (Dehongprefecture) level. Special attention is paid to identify the actors and the instrumentalization of their interests, to analyse resulting arenas of conflicts and to asses the asymmetric environmental as well as socio-economic implications (on local level).