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Cost-Benefit Analysis of Dam Projects: The Perspectives of Resettled and Non-resettled Communities

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Abstract

The research focuses on the perception of the Mucharz reservoir in relation to costs and benefits for two types of communities. The primary aim of the paper is to compare the social impact of dam projects among both resettled and non-resettled local communities. The secondary aim of the paper is to test multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) as a tool to examine the social impact assessment (SIA) of dam projects. The studied dam is located on the Skawa River within the Polish Carpathians. We used in-depth interviews with a non-resettled (N = 96) and resettled (N = 57) local population. To analyse the collected data, we performed multivariate analysis of variance. The main results indicate that the social assessment of dam projects differs significantly depending on whether one belongs to the group of resettled or non-resettled population. MANOVA is an effective tool for the analysis of the social impact assessment (SIA) of dam projects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, ul. św. Jana 22, 31-018, Cracow, Poland

    Łukasz Wiejaczka

  2. Institute of Geography, Pedagogical University of Cracow, ul. Podchorążych 2, 30-084, Cracow, Poland

    Danuta Piróg & Joanna Fidelus-Orzechowska

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  1. Łukasz Wiejaczka
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  2. Danuta Piróg
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  3. Joanna Fidelus-Orzechowska
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Correspondence to Joanna Fidelus-Orzechowska.

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Wiejaczka, Ł., Piróg, D. & Fidelus-Orzechowska, J. Cost-Benefit Analysis of Dam Projects: The Perspectives of Resettled and Non-resettled Communities. Water Resour Manage 34, 343–357 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-019-02451-0

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