Lyon, Kimberly

Person:
Lyon, Kimberly

Water Global Practice of the World Bank

Author Name Variants

Lyon, Kimberly, Lyon, Kimberly Nicole, Lyon, Kimberly N.

Fields of Specialization

WATER RESOURCES, DAMS, HYDROPOWER

Departments

Water Global Practice of the World Bank

Last updated:January 31, 2023

Biography

Kimberly Lyon is a water resources consultant, working primarily on analytic activities and advisory services related to water resources management, hydropower and dam safety. She has been working with the World Bank for 8 years, during which she has supported engagements in Africa, East and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Before joining the World Bank, she worked on environmental services at WWF-US and the World Resources Institute. She holds a Master’s from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and an A.B. from Rollins College.

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Now showing1 - 7 of 7

Laying the Foundations: Decision Support Tool to Inform and Assess Regulatory Frameworks for Dam Safety Assurance
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022) Boj Garcia, Esteban; Wishart, Marcus J.; Ueda, Satoru; Pisaniello, John; Tingey-Holyoak, Joanne L.; Lyon, Kimberly N.
The foundation for effective dam safety assurance is an appropriate and well-designed regulatory framework that captures the legal, institutional, technical, and financial elements in the reality of a particular jurisdiction. Aging infrastructure, diminishing returns on new projects, changes in climate and weather patterns, and shifting trends of human settlement require ever-increasing attention in the effort to ensure the safety of dams and downstream communities. Establishing and maintaining a regulatory framework that is fit for purpose is, therefore, necessary for assuring the quality of dam design, construction, and operations. The framework also ensures that safety measures are reflective of the risks inherent in managing these structures and the context in which they are developed. Such frameworks need to be developed as part of a holistic strategy for water management that is integrated in basin and regional planning processes. The purpose of this Decision Support Tool is to guide countries and jurisdictions through various considerations in designing and updating their regulatory environment for dam safety assurance. This Decision Support Tool aggregates information derived from a comprehensive review and comparative analysis of regulatory frameworks in 51 countries. It presents a typology of situations that correlate with regulatory framework options along a continuum from minimum to maximum assurance of safety. It then presents hypothetical examples of how the Decision Support Tool can be used by countries and jurisdictions to assess their own situations and which regulatory options may be appropriate to consider for improving dam safety assurance.
Laying the Foundations: A Global Analysis of Regulatory Frameworks for the Safety of Dams and Downstream Communities
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020-11-19) Boj García, Esteban; Wishart, Marcus J.; Ueda, Satoru; Pisaniello, John D.; Tingey-Holyoak, Joanne L.; Lyon, Kimberly N.
Dam safety is central to public protection and economic security. However, the world has an aging portfolio of large dams, with growing downstream populations and rapid urbanization placing dual pressures on these important infrastructures to provide increased services and to do it more safely. To meet the challenge, countries need legal and institutional frameworks that are fit for purpose and can ensure the safety of dams. Such frameworks enable dams to provide water supplies to meet domestic and industrial demands, support power generation, improve food security, and bolster resilience to floods and droughts, helping to build safer communities. Laying the Foundations: A Global Analysis of Regulatory Frameworks for the Safety of Dams and Downstream Communities is a systematic review of dam regimes from a diverse set of 51 countries with varying economic, political, and cultural circumstances. These case studies inform a continuum of legal, institutional, technical, and financial options for sustainable dam safety assurance. The findings from the comparative analysis will inform decisionmakers about the merits of different options for dam safety and help them systematically develop the most effective approaches for the country context. By identifying the essential elements of good practices guided by portfolio characteristics, this tool can help identify gaps in existing legal, institutional, technical, and financial frameworks to enhance the regulatory regime for ensuring the safety of dams and downstream communities.
Using the Hydropower Sustainability Tools in World Bank Group Client Countries: Lessons Learned and Recommendations
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-12) Lyon, Kimberly
The Hydropower Sustainability Tools (HSTs) are a suite of assessment tools and guidance documents developed by a multi-stakeholder forum, aimed at driving continuous improvement in hydropower development and operations. They are useful beyond their original purpose as audit tools and can be used in World Bank Group (WBG) client countries to build capacity for sustainable hydropower. The environmental, social, and governance topics addressed by the HSTs are deliberately aligned with WBG frameworks, which provides opportunities for the tools to be used as complements to World Bank Group standards, including to help clients meet WBG requirements and support WBG staff in their due diligence and supervision. It is, however, important that WBG staff should give careful thought to selecting the tool that is most appropriate, given the nature and status of a project, and in a way that is consistent with policy requirements. The tools can also be used voluntarily by WBG client countries in the absence of WBG financing. The HSTs are widely regarded as useful reference tools and recognized as the best currently available measuring stick for principles of sustainable hydropower.
Laying the Foundations: Essential Elements for Assuring the Safety of Dams and Downstream Communities
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-07-16) Boj Garcia, Esteban; Wishart, Marcus J.; Ueda, Satoru; Pisaniello, John D.; Tingey-Holyoak, Joanne L.; Lyon, Kimberly N.
Assuring the safety of dams is central to protecting downstream communities, infrastructure, and the environment. Dam safety is also important for securing water for productive purposes and sustaining economic development. With a global portfolio of more than 58,000 large dams, issues associated with the safety of dams and downstream communities are becoming increasingly important, particularly given aging infrastructure, increasing downstream populations, shifting demographics, and changes in climate and weather patterns. The foundation for effective dam safety assurance is an appropriate and well-designed regulatory framework that captures the legal, institutional, technical, and financial elements in the reality of a particular jurisdiction. Establishing and maintaining a regulatory framework that is fit for purpose is, therefore, necessary for ensuring the quality of dam design, construction, and operation and maintenance. The framework also ensures that safety measures are reflective of the risks inherent in managing these structures and the context in which they are developed. Such frameworks need to be developed as part of a holistic strategy for water management that is integrated in basin and regional planning processes. The objective of this policy note is to provide guidance to policy makers and practitioners on the essential elements for establishing regulatory regimes for assuring the safety of dams and downstream communities.
The Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol for Use by World Bank Clients : Lessons Learned and Recommendations
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-06-30) Liden, Rikard; Lyon, Kimberly
As a mature technology, hydropower has by far the largest installed capacity of any renewable source of electricity generation. In 1998, in the face of escalating pressure, the World Commission on Dams (WCD) was established by the World Bank and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to review the development effectiveness of large dams and establish a comprehensive set of guidelines for the design, implementation, and operation of dams and their decommissioning. Following the final report of the WCD, the hydropower industry took many steps to operationalize its key recommendations and to improve environmental and social management of hydropower globally. In an effort to improve its performance and provide a consistent approach for assessment, the industry partnered with civil society, policymakers, and financiers around the principles of sustainable hydropower. The output of this process is the multi-stakeholder hydropower sustainability assessment protocol (hereafter referred to as the protocol).The main purpose of this report is to reflect on the applicability of the protocol in developing country contexts, based on the available cases, and offer direction on how it can be used to improve the performance of hydropower projects in World Bank client countries. This report also seeks to clarify the complementarity of the protocol with respect to World Bank policies and procedures and provide input as to the World Bank s role in the governance of the protocol. The lessons and recommendations presented in this report are based on a desk review of previous protocol assessments; consultation with World Bank staff; structured interviews with accredited assessors and developers from previous assessments; as well as direct observations during the pilot assessment of the Trung Son Hydropower Project in Vietnam.
Supporting Hydropower : An Overview of the World Bank Group's Engagement
(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-10-03) Rex, William; Foster, Vivien; Lyon, Kimberly; Bucknall, Julia; Liden, Rikard
Hydropower development makes an essential contribution to reducing poverty, boosting shared prosperity, and improving sustainability. Water storage associated with some hydropower projects can also make important contributions to water and food security and to climate resilience. The World Bank Group (WBG) thus uses multiple instruments to support sustainable and responsible hydropower projects of various sizes and types, depending on local need. But hydropower can also carry significant risks that must be carefully managed. Supporting sustainable hydropower is important for the World Bank Group, because hydropower potential exists where electricity is most needed. Hydropower production is the least-cost method of providing electricity in many developing countries. The WBG is committed to helping its clients continuously improve the way they approach hydropower so as to better manage its risks and better share the benefits of this renewable resource. Support for hydropower helps manage risks and can yield local, national, regional, and global benefits. Sustainable hydropower has three dimensions: physical, financial, and social/environmental. While a large amount of progress has been made on sustainability, particularly over the last decade, new challenges continue to emerge or become more pressing. These include: 1) securing multiple benefits from investments in hydropower; 2) managing cascades of projects to optimize additional benefits or to prevent exacerbating negative impacts; and 3) developing a more sophisticated understanding of land and water interactions.
The Water Portfolio of the World Bank: Insights from a Review of Fiscal Year 2011
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-06) Scheierling, Susanne M.; Lyon, Kimberly N.
This report presents insights from the FY11 review of the World Bank s water portfolio. The report includes a methodological section followed by reviews of four broad areas: the water related commitments managed by the World Bank Group (WBG) for FY011; the water-related commitments of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and of the International Development Association (IDA) for FY11; water-related projects approved in FY11; and analytic and advisory activities (AAA), in particular economic and sector work (ESW) and technical assistance (TA), delivered in FY11. The focus of the report is on the new IBRD and IDA commitments in FY11, which are analyzed not only based on data provided in the World Bank s project database but also with data generated by reviewing the Project Appraisal Documents (PADs) using a newly developed questionnaire. Some of the key findings of the FY11 review are the following: Water-related IBRD and IDA commitments comprised about 95% of the overall WBG managed commitments for water. From FY02 to FY11 they grew more than five-fold, from US$1.3 billion to US$7.4 billion largely driven by increased commitments for water supply and sanitation. In FY11 a total of 105 water-related IBRD and IDA projects were approved. Commitments by region were largest for the East Asia and Pacific Region (EAP) and the South Asia Region (SAR) with 30% and 29%, respectively. With regard to the number of projects, Africa was by far the leading Region with 33 projects. Of the 105 water-related projects, only 22% were mapped to the Water Sector Board (WAT) and most of these were water supply and sanitation projects.