The Paradox of Small Hydropower: Local Government and Environmental Governance in China
研究发现地方政府通过‘环境捆绑经济利益’策略推动小水电发展，但各级政府的无序开发反而破坏了环境，以云南为例揭示中国环境治理的新趋势与问题。
Small Hydropower is regarded by the Chinese state as a method for both poverty alleviation and environmental protection in rural areas. This paper finds that local government officials develop an ‘environmentally bundled economic interests’ approach that simultaneously fulfills the central state’s new political mission and local economic development demand. The small hydropower plants however have paradoxically become the destroyer of the environment as local government at different levels develop the plants in an un-coordinated manner. We use the growth of small hydropower in Yunnan province as an exemplar to show the new tendency and problems of China’s environmental governance.