Making Sense of Unsustainable Realities: Hydropower and the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

This paper explores the tensions between hydropower and sustainable development to critically examine how hydropower, often promoted as a strategy for fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals, may not align with the values and needs of local communities. Research in Costa Rica highlights a key issue: For whom and for what is hydropower sustainable? While hydropower may support global energy and climate goals, it often undermines the autonomy, cultural practices, and ecological relationships of Indigenous peoples. This disconnect raises further questions: what social, economic, and ecological trade-offs are acceptable, and for whom? This paper discusses how these trade-offs—climate mitigation versus the loss of land, resources, and autonomy—are often imposed without meaningful consultation or participation from affected communities. Furthermore, it asks who makes the decisions, and how can these decisions be more just? By analyzing the power dynamics within hydrosocial territories, this paper argues for water governance that applies an environmental justice framework to address power asymmetries and centers marginalized voices to ensure that sustainability efforts do not reproduce the very injustices they seek to solve.

1. Introduction

The Brundtland Report (“Our Common Future”) recognizes that “economic growth always brings risk of environmental damage,” while also acknowledging that societal health is inseparable from ecological well-being [1] (Part I, section II). This foundational document reframed development as a balance between three interlinked systems: social, environmental, and economic. Building on this vision, the United Nations adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 as a blueprint to meet this harmonious triad of ambitions, ensure human progress for present generations without hindering future prospects, and ultimately eradicate poverty [2].

Interpretations of “sustainable development” vary widely by different sectors of society [3,4], enabling a range of interventions, some of which raise new dilemmas. This research article critically examines hydropower as one such intervention, questioning its framing as a solution aligned with the SDGs.

Hydropower is frequently promoted for its potential to support affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), economic development (SDG 8), and climate action (SDG 13) by providing electricity, enhancing energy security, enabling regional infrastructure development, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel energy sources [5] (p. 2); [6]. The World Commission on Dams (hereafter Commission) recognizes that “dams have made an important and significant contribution to human development, and benefits derived from them have been considerable” [7] (p. xxviii). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) praised hydropower for being a proven technology that has been a “catalyst for economic and social development by providing both energy and water management services, and it can continue to do so in the future” [8] (p. 441).

Simultaneously, a growing body of research challenges this narrative [9]. Large-scale hydropower projects are responsible for ecological disruption (SDG 15 on life on land), negatively altering hydrological cycles and flow regimes (SDG 6 on clean water and sanitation), emitting large quantities of methane (SDG 13 on climate action), and displacing marginalized communities, thereby exacerbating socio-environmental inequalities (SDG 10 on reduced inequalities) [10,11,12]. The social and environmental impacts of hydropower development are particularly acute for Indigenous communities, where proposed projects frequently ignite and/or exacerbate conflict and violence over land tenure [13,14]. The Commission concluded that the benefits of dams have come at “an unacceptable and often unnecessary price” [7] (p. xxviii).

The Brundtland Report also cautioned about the risks associated with hydropower, particularly the destruction of ecosystems and the displacement of communities. The report warned that “noise from turbines and glare from solar panels are minor issues compared with the ecosystem destruction at hydropower sites or the uprooting of homesteads in the areas to be flooded, as well as the health risks from toxic gases generated by rotting submerged vegetation and soils” [1] (p. 162). As Ho [15] (pp. 63–64) articulates, hydropower has “prioritised energy security at the expense of the other dimensions of sustainable development.” Costa Rica offers a compelling case study of these tensions, revealing the country as a microcosm of the global contestation over the sustainability of hydropower.

Costa Rica, often celebrated for its social and environmental leadership, illuminates how even green development initiatives can reproduce longstanding patterns of marginalization and exclusion when pursued without meaningful community engagement or equitable decision-making. Drawing on fieldwork, policy analysis, and ethnographic research, this article explores how national agencies and corporate actors frame hydropower as essential for climate mitigation and sustainable development, while local communities—in particular the Brörán Indigenous peoples in Costa Rica—voice deep opposition.

The central questions are as follows: For whom is hydropower sustainable—and at what cost? Furthermore, who gets to make these decisions? Understanding these questions and the social, environmental, and/or economic trade-offs are essential for building more just, participatory, and ecologically sound forms of water governance and ultimately a more sustainable future for all.

To understand these dynamics in a theoretical context, hydropower is assessed as a central node within a complex constellation of socio-environmental and political systems. Hydropower occupies both imaginary and physical spaces—imagined in policy, planning, and discourse, while physically constructed as tangible objects on the landscape—while also shaping and being shaped by society, technology, and nature. As such, hydropower is not just an energy source; it is deeply embedded in the processes that organize and transform territories, infrastructures, and governance structures. Therefore, these entanglements position hydropower within what scholars describe as hydrosocial territories [16].

Hydrosocial territories encompass the ways in which water systems, governance structures, and societal practices are interwoven, influencing, and being influenced by everything from river flows to industry to local communities to global climate agendas and sustainable development goals to cultural norms and legal systems. Within these spatially bound, multi-scalar networks, conflicting values, knowledge systems, and imaginaries about water governance inevitably collide [17].

By examining hydropower through this lens, the article reveals how efforts to achieve the SDGs may inadvertently undermine their own principles of equity, inclusion, and sustainability. The following sections review the materials and methods, followed by the results of ethnographic research in Costa Rica on the proposed Diquís hydropower project, event ethnography at global hydropower and climate meetings, a policy and literature review of hydropower’s sustainability journey, and a literature review that challenges the operationalization of hydropower’s sustainability platform. In the discussion that returns to the central questions, it is argued that positioning hydropower as a component of reaching the SDGs is sustaining the unsustainable. In conclusion, the findings support that a justice-centered framework for fulfilling the SDGs is greatly needed to ensure that sustainability efforts do not reproduce the very injustices they seek to solve.

2. Materials and Methods

This research employs a multi-sited, mixed-methods, ethnographic approach that integrates ethnographic fieldwork with the Brörán Indigenous community in Costa Rica to study the local impacts of global governance mechanisms, with event ethnography at hydropower and climate conferences, to study decision-making processes regarding development initiatives [18,19,20].

Place-based anthropological research with Brörán peoples has been ongoing since 2016. This community was selected because it is at the forefront of the country’s climate debate, as at the time, the national goal of achieving carbon neutrality greatly depended upon the completion of the Diquís hydropower project. The dam was proposed on the Térraba River that runs through Brörán ancestral lands. Approximately 600 Brörán peoples live in Térraba territory in southwestern Costa Rica, an autonomous 9355-hectare region located in Buenos Aires municipal district within Puntarenas Province (Figure 1).

The author lived with an Indigenous family between 2016 and 2019 for approximately 18 months, in addition to making two visits in 2024 and ongoing communication via social media. This research entailed conducting participant observation, which included daily chores and activities, attending community events and meetings, and visiting four neighboring Indigenous communities to speak with native peoples and local farmers concerned about the construction of dams. Two dozen semi-structured interviews were conducted with Brörán elders, Indigenous peoples, and river defenders, in addition to countless informal discussions within those communities [21].

Event ethnography at global hydropower and climate conferences includes research at the International Hydropower Association’s (IHA) biennial World Hydropower Congress in 2019 in Paris, France, and virtually in 2021 (held in Costa Rica). The International Hydropower Association (IHA) is a non-profit membership association. They self-identify as “the global voice for sustainable hydropower.” The IHA is a platform for industry professionals committed to delivering sustainable hydropower, with 100 members in 120 countries.

Research was also conducted at four of the annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP): Katowice, Poland (COP24, 2018), Glasgow, Scotland (COP26, 2021), Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt (COP27, 2022), and Dubai, UAE (COP28, 2023). Event ethnography included conducting dozens of informal conversations and/or interviews with representatives from non-governmental organizations, environmental groups, academics, civil society, and industry. Participant observation was a core component of event ethnography, which entailed attending talks, panels, roundtables, information sessions, and working groups [22,23,24].

Within these meeting spaces, narratives and discourses about hydropower, as well as the representatives present and participating in the discussions, were documented. The findings were discussed and debated with other academics in a collaborative approach to research [20]. Collectively, event ethnography provides critical insights into hydropower’s position within sustainable development frameworks, highlighting how narratives of hydropower influence climate mitigation strategies and the justice, equity, and inclusivity of decision-making regarding hydropower project development. All ethnographic research was conducted following ethical guidelines of elders from the Brörán community alongside permission from the University of Colorado Boulder IRB (15-0673) and Saint Louis University IRB (33682).

This research integrates literature reviews and policy assessments of hydropower resources to assess hydropower alignment with each of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 SDGs include ending poverty in all its forms (SDG 1), ending hunger and promoting sustainable agriculture (SDG 2), ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all (SDG 3), ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education (SDG 4), achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls (SDG 5), ensuring access to clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy (SDG 7), promoting sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth and decent work (SDG 8), building resilient infrastructure and fostering innovation (SDG 9), reducing inequality within and among countries (SDG 10), making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable (SDG 11), ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns (SDG 12), taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (SDG 13), conserving oceans, seas, and marine resources (SDG 14), protecting, restoring, and promoting the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems (SDG 15), promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and building effective, accountable institutions (SDG 16), and strengthening global partnerships for sustainable development (SDG 17). The Results Section includes a signpost for the primary related SDG(s).

3. Results

3.1. The Brörán Peoples and the Proposed Diquís Hydropower Project

Costa Rica’s national electricity company, Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE, pronounced “E-say”), also known as the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity, headquartered in San José, proposed the Diquís hydropower project in 2006, referring to it as the “central axis” of its renewable energy plan (ICE, 2017, 2). They additionally stated that to fulfill medium- and high-demand scenarios of energy growth while ensuring their country’s goals to reduce carbon emissions, “a project like El Diquís is required” and, furthermore, that “the strategy of the Diquís hydroelectric project provides optimal economic and environmental results” (addressing SDG 7, 8, 9, and 13) [25] (p. 2). The Diquís was a primary component of Costa Rica’s effort to be the first Latin American country to become carbon neutral—by their bicentennial in 2021 (the effort was ultimately unsuccessful).

The Diquís was just the latest version of a dam that ICE was attempting to build on the Térraba River. If completed, it would have been the largest dam in central America, a mega-dam with a height of 179 m (587 feet), width of 600 m, and production capacity of 650 MW, enough to supply energy to one million people annually [25]. On its 160 km journey to the Pacific Ocean, the river passes through seven autonomous Indigenous territories, meaning that a dam could impact 15,000 Indigenous peoples whose lives, livelihoods, and cultures are intimately tied to the river. The impact area of the proposed project would have stretched throughout the region, with impacts up- and downstream (Figure 2).

ICE did not consult with the affected Indigenous communities in a process of gaining Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), as is required under international and national laws [26] before commencing on what ICE termed “geotechnical studies” (SDG 10). The International Labor Organization (ILO) 169 guarantees Indigenous peoples the right to consultation and equal decision-making regarding development projects (Article 6) and the right to determine the types of development in their communities (Article 7). The studies included plowing roads through Térraba forest and fields, altering riverine banks with cement berms, drilling two 200 m long tunnels into the mountain (SDG 15), and otherwise disturbing the community with an influx of non-Indigenous workers and large equipment (SDG 11) (Figure 3).

The Diquís proposal exacerbated ongoing tensions in the community between the Brörán peoples and the 1200 non-Indigenous peoples illegally settled within Térraba territory [27]. The non-Indigenous peoples stood to benefit economically from the construction of the dam given their possession of lands that would overlook the future reservoir [21]. Non-Indigenous peoples burned cultural buildings, verbally and physically threatened Indigenous community members, murdered Indigenous leader Jerhy Rivera, and otherwise attempted to intimidate them to stop their land back initiatives and/or into changing their position on the dam (SDG 3, 11, and 16).

An ICE representative for the Boruca region adamantly argued during a 30 min interview in June 2018 that most communities in the region want the Diquís because there are “many benefits for the community. They [ICE] repair roads, they repair schools, they bring social assistance… in the end, it [Diquís] makes a beautiful lake.” He argued that there will be “lots of people” attracted to the region because the Diquís will have secondary benefits by bringing “more hotels, more restaurants, businesses, transportation” to the undeveloped district (SDG 3, 4, and 7).

The perspective from the Brörán peoples in Térraba territory is markedly different. First, the Indigenous peoples interviewed had no desire to participate in “that type of development.” According to Doña Digna, a respected Brörán elder and key informant, resistance to the Diquís was a clear avenue for the community to take because development to the Brörán peoples requires a focus on social and cultural prosperity, which must be achieved through self-determination and autonomy. She affirms that, in her experience, most of the Indigenous peoples living in the territory resist external, individualistic conceptions of development that are based on large-scale capitalist expansion and resource extraction (SDG 12). Instead, they position economic growth as a benefit secondary to their preferred forms of development, which have a primary focus on the well-being of families and communities (SDG 1–17).

The Indigenous concept of development in Térraba is informed by Brörán peoples’ specific epistemologies, culture, relationships with nature, knowledges, and future imaginaries—most of which rely on the free-flowing Térraba River that meanders through their ancestral lands. The river is a vital life source, an entity that the community respects through mutual care and protection, one that they treat in a form of kinship, that holds memories and carries spiritual significance to their lives and to future generations (Figure 4).

Scholars have noted a discrepancy in development ideologies, noting that there is a contradiction between “two world views: the national development project, on the one hand, represented by ICE, and the project of ethnic continuity, to which the indigenous community aspires” [28] (p. 124). The national development project has supported and reified Costa Rica’s legacy of democratic and social exceptionalism [29,30], which has further allowed it to carefully manicure and capitalize on a utopic environmental image [31] that, at the same time, excludes Indigenous peoples and their histories.

Second, many people in Térraba did not believe they would receive any compensation or benefits for the proposed Diquís project and that only the non-Indigenous peoples would gain direct financial aid (SDG 8). Compensation mechanisms that have been suggested by the state/ICE would not adequately account for the Indigenous peoples’ true cultural, social, and territorial losses [32] (p. 43). A long-standing issue in the community is access to Indigenous-led and developed educational systems for the Brörán children, which the state has impeded. Furthermore, Doña Digna’s son Jerhy, a close collaborator, stated in an interview with Cultural Survival (a non-profit organization with federal 501 (c)(3) status, headquartered in Cambridge, MA, USA) something he repeated many times during this research: “We don’t believe in the promises of employment for Indigenous Peoples, as up until today it had been demonstrated that all the qualified and best paid personnel have been brought from outside, Indigenous workers are used only to break rocks” [33].

Moreover, in a women’s networking meeting in 2016, one woman stated that part of the problem is that only men would benefit from construction jobs. She relayed that, years prior, at a meeting between ICE representatives and the Térraba community, ICE stated that the work available to women would be to “serve beer,” perhaps oblivious to the fact that it is illegal to sell alcohol in Indigenous territories (SDG 5 and 8).

Finally, ICE advanced their hydropower agenda under the belief that “everyone wanted electricity, to be like the West,” stated during a tour of Grupo ICE’s hydropower museum in San José in April 2019. A Brörán elder, Don Benjamín, rebutted that perspective a few months prior. While standing in the doorway of his one room wood-slated home overlooking the Térraba River, he declared, “I only need land, not electricity.” He further doubted that any of the electricity produced would come back to the community, believing instead that it would all be routed to major cities or sold on the regional energy grid (known as SIEPAC for its Spanish acronym; SDG 7), as was part of ICE’s plan. While speaking one day from reclaimed ancestral lands, another elder, Don Pablo explained that the Diquís would “destroy the land, culture, traditions, and food. We would lose everything” (SDG 1–17).

Brörán elders and other community members consistently expressed that the river and its waters are integral to their lives, identities, and spiritual practices. Their deep connection fueled sustained resistance to hydropower development on the Térraba River for over 50 years, beginning with the state’s first attempt to construct a dam for aluminum processing in 1968 (canceled due to protests in 1975), followed by the proposed Gran Boruca project, proposed in 1980 to improve energy security and sovereignty (ultimately canceled in 2004 for socio-ecological impacts and its hazardous proximity to a fault line).

Most recently, protest by the Brörán peoples and their allies ultimately led to the 2018 cancelation of the Diquís Dam, underscoring the community’s enduring commitment to protecting their territory and way of life [34,35].

The cancelation also coincided with a newly formed consultation mechanism, mandated by the Costa Rican Supreme Court at the behest of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, James Anaya. Anaya condemned the state’s actions towards the Brörán peoples, citing numerous violations of international Indigenous right’s laws in their attempt to build the Diquís [21,36]. Cancelation may point to the lack of willingness to consult with Indigenous groups over the Diquís, although the President of ICE noted in an interview and in her announcement that the cancelation was due to economic reasons and the overproduction of hydropower mixed with decreased demand (SDG 12) [37].

One morning after the announcement that ICE would stop pursuing the Diquís, Doña Digna relayed her continued fears, sternly warning that:

“The Diquís has not gone. It will return in another form. But when it returns, it will be worse. We don’t have anything signed that says they will never return to Térraba territory. There is still this little bug always in our minds. What can you do when they return with something different? Or maybe they will come back and say they want to continue the Diquís.”

Those fears are becoming a reality as the current president of Costa Rica has proposed to revisit the Diquís project [38,39]. The ongoing cycle of hydropower proposal and resistance is likened to the many-headed Hydra; as soon as one dam is stopped, another rises in its place, creating a perpetual Indigenous–hydropower cycle [37]. Indigenous groups incorporate academic research into their resistance strategies, as they know hydropower projects in Costa Rica can destroy biodiversity and ecosystems, essentially extirpating native species from reaches above dams where they were once plentiful (SDG 16) [40], as has been known to occur globally (SDG 14) [41].

Similar to large dams around the world, those built in Costa Rica have significant negative impacts on downstream hydrologic cycles and challenge the overall health of their river basins and people dependent upon them (SDG 6, 14, 15) [42,43], specifically as they lead to river fragmentation (SDG 14 and 15) [44,45]. Although the state never publicized the environmental impact statement (SDG 17) [46], scholars report that the Diquís would endanger 365 species of riverine-dependent animals in the region, including 13 endemic species (SDG 14 and 15) [32]. Brörán peoples are all too familiar with the fallout of dams, knowing other struggles in the country, namely from the construction of Arenal dam, and more recently the Reventazón dam, built in the northern region of the country, which dissected an endangered jaguar habitat, caused downstream fish biodiversity decline, and left communities with forest damage (SDG 14 and 15) [47].

The Térraba River empties into the sprawling mangroves of the RAMSAR -protected Térraba-Sierpe National Wetlands as it meets the Pacific Ocean, so the construction of the Diquís (or any other dam on the Térraba River) would have serious implications for the health of the entire interconnected river-to-ocean socio-ecological ecosystem (SDG 14 and 15) [32]. Regarding CO₂ emissions, ICE calculated that the Diquís project would emit 250 thousand tons of CO₂ in 2017, and by 2035, CO₂ emissions would be 404 thousand tons after a relatively steady 18-year increase (SDG 13) [25].

3.2. World Hydropower Congress and UNFCCC COP Meetings

At a panel titled “Hydropower Benefits” during the 2019 World Hydropower Congress, a representative from an environmental organization questioned a panel of industry leaders about the negative impacts of dams, suggesting that corporations should consider other forms of value in their impact analysis, not just financial calculations. One panelist representing the renewable energy department of a major corporation was eager to reply, stating that it comes down to determining “What is really real? What can we measure? Then we can have a debate about facts and not a debate about feelings…and not like sentiments, not kind of emotions, but really a fact-based discussion, where we can really make choices at the end of the day.”

Feelings related to the environment, in particular, peoples’ connections to place, in part form and are formed by cultural values and are particularly important when considering the displacement or another loss of connections to ancestral homelands and farms or ways of life because of dam development. The contrast in valuation is similarly visible between the Brundtland Report and the International Hydropower Association (IHA). Relative to hydropower, the Brundtland Report affirms that:

“a hydropower project should not be seen merely as a way of producing more electricity; its effects upon the local environment and the livelihood of the local community must be included in any balance sheets. Thus, the abandonment of a hydro project because it will disturb a rare ecological system could be a measure of progress, not a setback to development.”

[1] (p. 49)

Meanwhile, the IHA explains its perspective on valuation, stating that,

“If the costs of those benefits [from hydropower] require changes in social and environmental capital, then the decision to move forward or not is normative, based on a society’s value system…”

[6] (p. 16)

For whom and for what are these value systems normative? And who is making those determinations? Both the Brundtland Report [1] and the World Commission on Dams [7] highlight the disparities of the continued use of large-scale hydropower on interconnected social and ecological systems, which comprises 2/3 of the sustainability triad. Yet, at IHA and climate meetings, industry representatives continue to present hydroelectricity as a traditionally strong technology, a proven, cost-effective way to provide clean and dependable energy, new jobs, and boost economies. These points were reinforced in the Indonesia Pavilion at COP28 in Dubai on a brightly illuminated jumbo-screen that read, “The industrial revolution was powered by water. Water, wind and sun together will power the sustainable growth of the future.”

3.3. Becoming Sustainable

According to the IHA [6] (p. 9), “the debate on the sustainability of hydropower culminated in the 1990s,” on the heels of decades of social and environmental consequences from dams. Mounting pressure from affected groups led to an internal review at the World Bank (who funded most of the controversial projects). The resulting report admitted that the Bank failed to follow its own guidelines regarding resettlement and rehabilitation for Indigenous peoples, leading to serious “problems” and “deficiencies” in their local interactions [48,49]. Thereafter, the World Bank slowed its support of dams, signaling to the industry and transnational financial corporations to do the same.

In a bid to move forward with more socially and environmentally appropriate hydropower, UNESCO helped establish the IHA in 1995 “as a forum to promote and disseminate good practice and further knowledge about hydropower” [6]. Soon thereafter, the IUCN and the World Bank collaborated to initiate the World Commission on Dams (hereafter Commission), which conducted a thorough independent review of the industry. They further state that “groups bearing the social and environmental costs and risks of large dams, especially the poor, vulnerable and future generations, are often not the same groups that receive the water and electricity services, nor the social and economic benefits” and argue that trade-offs between costs and benefits are unacceptable, “particularly given existing commitments to human rights and sustainable development” [7] (p. xxxi).

The Commission’s report was based on the core values of equity, efficiency, participatory decision-making, sustainability, and accountability. Its extensive group of authors, experts from various sectors and disciplines, made considerable recommendations, including that no dams be built without free prior and informed consent (FPIC) from affected Indigenous peoples, alternatives to water and energy needs should be explored before new dams are developed, priority should be given to improving the efficiency of existing infrastructure, review dams for safety and possible decommissioning, and establish a mechanism for reparations to those who have suffered from existing dams and to restore damaged ecosystems.

While claiming to accept the core values of the report, the IHA acknowledged there was some “disagreement on its detailed recommendations” [6]. First, the IHA understands the Commission report as a set of guidelines with a lowercase “g” instead of any form of legal obligations, so things like FPIC would be “good faith” actions, but not required. Second, although the Commission beckons the end of the large dam era, the IHA believes that “some of the lobbying against hydropower is based on a quasi-ideology that large-scale projects, for example, are intrinsically negative and must not be built or contemplated.” And third, the IHA disagrees on the aspect of trade-offs regarding sustainable development, stating:

“At the heart of the debate on the sustainable character of hydropower, is whether sustainability is seen as an absolute and universal concept, where a process is either sustainable or not in any place at any time, or whether it allows for a more flexible definition, where what counts is the balance between negative effects and positive benefits.”

[6] (p. 16)

The International Hydropower Association further calls any sustainable development initiatives “radical” that do not alter ecosystems, affirming that “any approach to sustainability which argues that ecosystems and populations must remain untouched fails to productively contribute to the sustainability debate locking present and future generations into a cycle of ‘undevelopment’” [6].

Despite differences in opinion regarding trade-offs, hydropower was included in the World Summit on Sustainable Development report [50]. The IHA teamed with the International Energy Agency to “facilitate worldwide recognition of hydropower as a well-established and socially desirable energy technology” that currently generates over 16% of global electricity [51].

The World Bank also reinforced hydropower’s momentum after its brief hiatus. The Vice President for sustainable development at the World Bank, Rachel Kyte, explained their regret at pulling out of hydropower funding in the past, stating that “was the wrong message” to send and “That was then. This is now. We are back” [52]. What followed was a “public relations offensive” that effectively greenwashed the industry to fit the sustainability narrative [53]. The public relations rebranding has propelled hydropower onto the global climate stage and resulted in its exponential growth [54].

The San José Declaration on Sustainable Hydropower (developed at the IHA meeting in Costa Rica in 2021), emphasizes that the IHA’s “shared task is to advance sustainable hydropower’s role in a clean energy future.” Thus, through this rebranding, hydropower has been integrated into the sustainable development agenda as well as global climate governance mitigation initiatives via the Kyoto Protocol flexible mechanism scheme; yet there are still gaps in understanding exactly how the relationship between hydro and climate were established.

To support the mantra “that all new hydropower will be sustainable hydropower,” the IHA developed the Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol [55]. In applying the Protocol, users work collaboratively with various stakeholders to create a sustainability score that is “factual, reproducible, objective and verifiable” [55] (p. 104). The description of the Protocol also notes that there may be “non-consensus” in determining sustainability, and provides the following caveats:

“Organizations may hold different views on what levels of performance are linked to a sustainable project, and the Protocol makes no specification on requirements for acceptable performance.…the Protocol can help inform decisions on what is a sustainable project; decision-making on projects is left to individual countries, institutions and organizations”.

[55] (p. 7)

The San José Declaration reiterates that if all IHA members and other hydropower companies do fall in line, making a choice to operate in “good faith,” then hydropower can make a significant contribution to national and international efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular, SDG 6 (sustainable water management), 7 (affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all), 8 (sustainable economic growth and jobs), 9 (resilient infrastructure) and 13 (urgent action to address climate change).

3.4. Intersecting Hydropower and the Sustainable Development Goals

The contradictions of hydropower as a pathway to achieve sustainable development goals discussed in Costa Rica are not unique to that country. The literature review presented here and summarized in

Table 1. The intersection of hydropower and the SDGs, including a case study from Costa Rica. The first column lists the SDGs, followed by a summary of hydropower’s conflicting relationship with that SDG globally, with citations in the central column. The fourth column presents an example from Costa Rica followed by a citation.

SDG	Hydropower Contradiction (Global)	Global Citations	Costa Rica Case Study	Costa Rica Citations
1 No Poverty	Mass displacement deepens poverty; most resettled households never recover.	[56,57,58,59]	15,000 Indigenous persons risk losing land and income; compensation doubted.	[21,33,60]
2 Zero Hunger	Flooded farmland and fisheries cut food security.	[9,61,62]	Reservoir would submerge farms; riverine fishing declines.	[21,25]
3 Health and Well-being	Reservoir pathogens + psycho-social stress harm health.	[55,62,63]	Violence over land and river: threats and murder of Jerhy Rivera.	[21,27,37]
4 Quality Education	Displacement disrupts schooling continuity.	[56]	School upgrades promised, not Indigenous-focused.	[21,37]
5 Gender Equality	Relocation narrows women’s job options and safety.	[59,61]	ICE told women could “serve beer” (illegal in territory).	[21,33]
6 Clean Water and Sanitation	Changed flow degrades water quality and sanitation.	[64,65]	Downstream quality risks to Térraba–Sierpe wetlands, and all downstream communities.	[42,43]
7 Affordable and Clean Energy	Dams overrun budgets; energy not always “cheap.”	[66,67]	Electricity likely exported.	[21]
8 Decent Work and Growth	Hydro-dependent states score lower on economic and governance metrics.	[59,68]	Skilled jobs go to outsiders; locals relegated to menial labor.	[21,33]
9 Industry and Infrastructure	“Modern” dams crowd out decentralized renewables.	[69]	ICE frames Diquís as “central axis” of innovation; ignores new tech.	[25,28]
10 Reduced Inequalities	Dams intensify ethnic and Indigenous marginalization.	[70,71]	No FPIC; no adherence to ILO 169.	[21,36,37]
11 Sustainable Communities	Forced relocation fragments communities and culture.	[60,71,72]	Settler violence, arson of cultural sites, social upheaval.	[21,27]
12 Responsible Consumption	Expanding dams in arid basins ≠ prudent resource use.	[69,73,74]	Discrepancies in development ideologies; more dams unneeded.	[21,37]
13 Climate Action	Tropical reservoirs emit CH4 & CO2.	[75,76,77,78,79,80,81]	ICE predicts 404,000 t CO2 yr−1 by 2035.	[25]
14 Life Below Water	Altered sediment and flow harm river-to-sea ecosystems.	[41,64,65]	Threat to river biodiversity and the RAMSAR Térraba-Sierpe estuary.	[32,40,44,47]
15 Life on Land	Forest flooding, habitat loss, species endangerment.	[45,70]	365 river-dependent species at risk; jaguar corridor severed.	[32,35,47]
16 Peace, Justice, Institutions	Weak consultation erodes trust; conflicts erupt.	[82,83]	Supreme Court forced new consultation after rights violations.	[36]
17 Partnerships for Goals	Power asymmetries hinder equitable SDG coalitions.	[67,68,74]	Brörán excluded from decision-making processes; environmental impact statement withheld.	[21,46]

explores related global concerns and case studies, providing a summary from the Results Section that counters hydropower’s capacity to effectively fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one SDG at a time. The Commission report [7] and the Brundtland Report [1] cover examples of hydropower’s intersection with multiple SDGs and are excluded from “Global Citations” to minimize repetition.

Regarding ending poverty (SDG 1), hydropower development has resulted in worldwide displacement—at least 80 million people, primarily Indigenous peoples or ethnic minorities have been removed from traditional lands [57,58]. Hitchcock [56] (p. 529) found that in nearly all cases where the relocation of Indigenous or local populations was required for a hydropower project, “the degree of impact on populations has been seriously underestimated.” Displaced peoples, who suffer physical and emotional disconnection from place, are rarely, if ever, able to recover economically, psychologically, or culturally [59], thus negatively intersecting with the goals to improve health and well-being (SDG 3) and improve job/economic growth (SDG 8).

Many current hydropower projects are proposed on Indigenous territories [7,59,70,71], continuing a historic pattern of dispossession via land and resource grabs. The aggregate impacts of displacement alone seriously challenge our ability to stop hunger (SDG 2) and has further societal ripple effects; relocation via hydropower may reduce access to decent work opportunities (SDG 8), particularly for women (gender equality, SDG 5), continue inequalities for Indigenous peoples (SDG 10), and reduce access to quality education (SDG 4), all of which also can lead to the breakdown of communities (SDG 11).

Additionally, flooding for hydropower reservoirs can negatively affect agricultural productivity, which can also compound poverty (SDG 1) and counteract hunger alleviation (SDG 2) [61]. There are documented pathogens in reservoirs that can negatively impact health (SDG 3) [62,63] and there are new concerns regarding sanitation and water quality downstream of dams (SDG 6) [64,65]. Developers regularly underestimate costs from the planning, construction, and operation of dams, thereby challenging their ability to provide “cheap” and “affordable” energy (SDG 7) [66].

The IHA aims to double the global installed capacity of hydropower [69], which may promote growth, but the placement of dams is often in arid landscapes like Arizona or elsewhere in the Colorado Basin [73], which is not a form of responsible consumption or production (SDG 12), nor will it support sustainable communities (SDG 11).

Research also highlights that dams lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions (SDG 13) [75,76]. Hydropower projects, specifically those in tropical regions where they are increasingly concentrated, release considerable amounts of methane, a GHG twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide on a 20-year timeframe [22,77,78,79,80,81].

Shifting hydrological regimes up and downstream of dams presents additional challenges for biodiversity, negatively impacting our abilities to protect life below water (SDG 14), which includes the interconnected flow between rivers to the sea and the nutrients that rivers carry through wetlands into the sea. Flooding forested areas constrains the ability to protect life on land (SDG 15), which is also intimately tied to the health of rivers via nutrient cycling. The lack of consultation with affected communities, as was the case in Costa Rica [37] and with Tribal Nations in the United States [82], violates peace and justice initiatives (SDG 16). Overall, power dynamics in decision-making processes regarding trade-offs hinder and are hindered by weak partnerships (SDG 17) between stakeholders in achieving these goals.

Many of the impacts of dams are only reviewed in silos, focusing on a single issue, with few that address the comprehensive or overlapping consequences confronting communities. While it is broadly recognized that the SDGs are meant to be mutually supportive of each other, there are certain trade-offs and conflicts in implementing them all simultaneously, and the nature of the interlinkages between SDGs is unclear [72]. In a comprehensive review of global hydropower, scholars conclude that hydropower projects will not fulfill their stated sustainable development goals because of their inherent contradictions (the impossibility of simultaneous economic and social–ecological well-being), leakages (conservation in one area failing to capture pollution in another), and the lack of additionality (providing benefits not already occurring) [74].

Regarding SDG 7, researchers attest to the problems with synergies and trade-offs, stating that “decisions about SDG 7 affect humanity’s ability to: (1) realize individual and collective aspirations of greater welfare and well-being; (2) build physical and social infrastructures for sustainable development; and (3) achieve sustainable management of the environment and natural resources” [67]. While not specifically discussing hydropower, it is one of the primary mechanisms for achieving SDG 7; thus, its intersection with the other SDGs and their targets should be a prime concern for research.

Related reviews of hydropower, not necessarily detailing links with specific SDGs, raise concerns regarding trade-offs as well. Hydropower states have lower security, economic, development, and governance metrics than countries not reliant upon dams [68]. They summarize that “the political economy of hydroelectricity is also about perpetually managing a series of pernicious risks, not always optimally. Which nations build dams, who benefits from them, and who suffers their costs—who wins and loses—must remain a central part of examining the promise—and peril—of hydropower” [68] (p. 73).

4. Discussion: Sustaining the Unsustainable

Costa Rica is globally recognized as a leader in sustainable development and climate governance, making it a critical case study through which to examine the local impacts of global sustainable development initiatives. Despite its reputation, scholars critique the country for thus far failing to find “energy solutions that are simultaneously low cost, low carbon, and low in conflict” [84] (p. 1). Costa Rica’s sustainability platform has been condemned for its inability to sustain growth and equity simultaneously [85,86]. Isla [87] argues the state appropriates environmental rhetoric to manufacture consent for resource exploitation, consequentially producing Costa Rica’s social image, and concludes that the “greening” of the country is a secondary result of political and economic processes, not its intended purpose. Moreover, Costa Rica’s successful sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, and environmental policies are criticized for avoiding:

“the contested landscapes and social practices that are destructive of nature… Furthermore, the voices and actions of rural Latin Americans are critically absent from these studies [including] those socially situated actors whose everyday lives and interactions are key factors in how environmentalism actually works.”

[88] (p. 7)

These critiques point to a disconnect between sustainability as policy and sustainability as lived experience. Costa Rican anthropologist María Bozzoli [89] specifically denounces the nation’s sustainable development program for leading to increased environmental deterioration and external debt in the country. As she argues, the model was based on a “notion of progress inherited from the liberal ideologies of the 19th century…under the guise of modernization” [89] (p. 276). While the ideology of sustainable development broadly incorporates goals of social justice, conservation, and ethics, those concepts have not effectively been implemented as practice, as these authors highlight, and as confirmed by the Brörán peoples. Some posit that given these critiques and the new administration’s environmentally extractive focus, Costa Rica’s “green halo” may be fading [90].

The situation regarding the Diquís and the Brörán peoples stands as a microcosm of broader social and environmental concerns related to the intersection of hydropower and the sustainable development goals. It provides an opportunity to understand “What social, economic, and ecological trade-offs are acceptable, and for whom?” and “Who makes the decisions, and how can these decisions be more just?”

While hydropower is applied as a sustainable solution to climate change and energy security, its impacts—particularly on Indigenous communities as studied herein—frequently disrupt native cultural, ecological, and social systems, ignoring Indigenous conceptions of development [91]. As the case in Costa Rica illustrates, hydropower projects often subordinate the rights of Indigenous peoples to state-driven efforts to manipulate the rivers in the name of sustainable development. The Brörán peoples were not included in the planning of the Diquís and no one sought free prior and informed consent (FPIC) prior to conducting geotechnical studies in Térraba territory. It took years of Indigenous-led protests and actions to stop the three state-proposed dams [37]. Hydropower projects are antithetical to the futures envisioned by the Brörán peoples, often severing their spiritual relationships to the river, their lives, and livelihoods.

Other studies have similarly concluded that dams displace communities and disrupt livelihoods while also degrading environments, diverting water, disturbing stream flows, destroying habitats, altering fish migrations, and emitting greenhouse gases [9], essentially countering numerous SDGs in the interest of economic growth. Michael Lawson’s account of the Pick–Sloan dams on the Missouri River Sioux [70] provides a thorough example of the collective burden of dams on Indigenous communities [92,93,94].

A key issue broadly in global environmental governance is how the sustainable development framework integrates economics with environmental and social well-being through what McAfee [95] describes as a “post-neoliberal environmental-economic paradigm.” In this context, the commodification of nature—“selling nature to save it”—leads to a conflation between the value of a resource (its market price) and values (moral, cultural, and relational understandings of nature). du Bray et al. [96] highlight that such a conflation obscures the fundamental differences in what people perceive as alienable or inalienable. Moral values, which incorporate cultural values, are rarely taken into consideration in the sustainable development framework as it is operationalized today, evidenced in the clear distinction between the communities in Costa Rica, who believe that cultural values play significant roles in determining appropriate development initiatives, and the CEO of a corporation at a hydropower meeting, who dismissed any type of value or decisions tied to feelings, sentiments, or emotions (fieldnotes, May 2019).

Despite early warnings by the Brundtland Report and Commission about the risks of over relying on large-scale hydropower, it has taken center stage in climate and sustainability initiatives. Empirical findings—from event ethnography, policy analysis, and fieldwork—underscore how hydropower is promoted as a sustainable solution while its social and ecological impacts are marginalized or ignored [97]. This reflects a broader pattern in climate governance: green rhetoric is used to justify extractive practices, also known as “green extractivism” [98] (p. 2), effectively sustaining the unsustainable [99,100,101,102,103].

Blühdorn’s assessment of sustaining the unsustainable seeks to explain “the evident contradiction between late-modern society’s acknowledgement that radical and effective change is urgent and inescapable and its adamant resolve to sustain what is known to be unsustainable” [99] (p. 272). Capitalist consumer society’s focus on tackling the symptoms of the climate crisis occurs without a willingness to address the “root causes of environmental decline,” thus sustaining the unsustainable actions, policies, or industries that are responsible for initiating the problem [99] (p. 252).

In response, Sneddon and colleagues [14] call for governance systems’ need to consider the “plurality of epistemological and normative perspectives on sustainability; the multiple interpretations and practices associated with the evolving concept of “development”; and efforts to open a continuum of local-to-global public spaces to debate and enact a politics of sustainability.” Costa Rica and others could benefit by shifting from their focus on hydropower towards decentralized renewable energy systems and community-based energy projects that center Indigenous ecological knowledge systems or epistemologies like buen vivir or rights of nature as viable pathways towards achieving the SDGs. Latin America is quickly becoming a leader in reimagining low-carbon energy transitions, driven by alternative frameworks rooted in Indigenous, Afro-descendant, labor, and activist movements [104] (p. 69), a transition that Costa Rica, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens alike, could benefit from adopting.

Overall, a sustainable development paradigm grounded in a justice-based approach would address many of the concerns raised in this paper. More analysis regarding the types of justice and strategies are needed, although growing understandings of justice within global climate governance [20] suggest they need to be place-based and context-specific while globally applicable [105] to correspond with the uneven effects of climate injustice and coloniality [106,107]. In terms of an energy transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy systems, Delina and Sovacool [108] suggest that it will be imperative to shift the ways “knowledge is produced and transitions are governed,” supporting the adoption of a justice framework. This research reiterates the need for justice in SDG and climate governance, drawing attention to the ongoing injustices present in global environmental governance.

5. Conclusion: Our Common Futures with Hydropower

Understanding water governance through the lens of hydrosocial territories reveals how large-scale infrastructures like hydropower are not neutral but are deeply entangled with local social, political, ecological systems, and competing worldviews. These territories are contested spaces reflect competing worldviews shaped by society, technology, and nature. In the case of the Brörán, the state’s attempted manipulation of the Térraba River disregards their autonomy and cultural–ecological relationships to land and water.

Decisions about hydropower projects are often made by state actors, international organizations, and large development agencies who prioritize economic growth and energy production, often overlooking Indigenous voices. Ensuring more equitable outcomes requires that these communities be actively involved in decision-making processes. The trade-offs involved—between energy security for the state and cultural, ecological loss for local populations—necessitate deep reflection and direct action.

Moving toward genuine sustainability demands governance arrangements that prioritize the rights and voices of local communities, particularly Indigenous peoples, while protecting water systems and ecological integrity, thereby respecting multiple ways of knowing and being. It also requires rethinking how sustainability is defined, implemented, and governed—beyond technological fixes and towards structural change.

In conclusion, hydropower may support global climate targets, but its local social and environmental costs reveal deep contradictions. This research highlights the need for more just and inclusive water governance that addresses power asymmetries and centers marginalized voices to ensure that sustainability efforts do not reproduce the very injustices they seek to solve. To achieve this, this research calls on the meaningful inclusion of Indigenous knowledge with integrated social and natural research through a justice-centered framework to inform more effective and equitable sustainability governance.