Infrastructure projects can contribute to our economic growth and wellbeing, but at the same time may also have negative effects. Large scale development projects take place with the requirement of land, sometimes very large tracts of land. This need for land can result in the dislocation of the people living there which defined by International Finance Corporation (IFC) as physical displacement. Even in situations where people are not required to physically move, the project may still impact their livelihoods or income-generating activities, either temporarily or permanently (i.e. economic displacement). Thus, guidelines and standards on project-induced resettlement have been made.
The process of resettlement is complex because it can be multi-dimensional, multi-factor, multi-scalar, and multi-level (Reddy et al., 2015). Once project-induced displacement is decided to exercise, the appropriate compensation, remediation, and restitution are needed to be determined to minimize the damage for the people who need to be relocated both physically and emotionally. Despite the various guidelines and standards, in almost all projects, people who were resettled were made worse off (Vanclay, 2017).
Extensive works have focused on how improvements in regulations and guidelines may help project-induced resettlement. In my presentation, I will instead focus on how utilizing spatial technologies may help the profiling and baseline data collection stage and then improve the overall project. The case study of the Three Gorges Project in China cost over 100 billion yuan (about 15 billion dollars) with 1.13 million people have been resettled will be discussed.
Reddy, G., Smyth, E., & Steyn, M. (2015). Land access and resettlement: a guide to best practice. Greenleaf Publishing.
Vanclay, F. (2017). Project-induced displacement and resettlement: from impoverishment risks to an opportunity for development? Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, 35(1), 3–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/14615517.2017.1278671