Dams

Japan wants to end its spending on wasteful construction projects, which are the cause of the country's massive debt. But for one small town on the verge of losing a dam, the "wasteful" project is the center of the local economy.

A recent breach in the largest hydroelectric dam in Russia highlights the dangers posed by undermaintained Soviet era infrastructure.

Dams are increasingly being removed in the U.S. as part of an effort to save fish.

Water projects and diversion efforts in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria are draining the marshlands near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, known as the 'Fertile Crescent'.

Marsh loss in the Gulf region is being exacerbated beyond repair by dams along the Mississippi River, according to a recent study.

Officials have brokered a deal to remove dams from the Klamath River in the Pacific Northwest -- a plan intended to counteract sharp declines in salmon counts and appease environmentalists. But the plan is also meeting criticism.

As construction begins on two large dams in the Amazon, thousands of indigenous people grapple with the prospect of the coming flood and the loss of their land, while environmentalists continue to oppose the construction.

In order to save an ancient kingdom that was flooded by a reservoir in the 1950s, officials in Bulgaria will build a €100 million wall around the submerged monument.

Plans to build a massive dam in Turkey have many hopeful that its creation will revive the local economy.

A group of Indians from the Amazon attacked a government engineer at a recent meeting where he was discussing a proposed hydroelectric dam on the Xingu River that could displace 15,000 indigenous people and destroy traditional fishing grounds.

A massive dam project in Turkey that would flood historic areas and displace 50,000 people is losing international support, as officials in Germany threaten to pull out of the project -- often called a smaller version of China's Three Gorges Dam.

Growth and rising populations have many Western states reconsidering dams.