Man-made Lakes and Resettlement

Abstract

The processes commonly described as settlement and resettlement (relocation, translocation) are both movements of population. Settlement is also sometimes called colonization, a word which implies movement into areas which have not previously been inhabited or cultivated. All resettlement, however, is not movement into uninhabited areas, and one of its problems is the relations between newcomers and existing inhabitants. Movement may be spontaneous, when, for example, an extension of communications brings some region within reach of markets, or irrigation comes to areas that previously depended on an uncertain rainfall. People who have not lost their homes can hardly be directed to settle elsewhere, but they may be encouraged to do so, and the conditions under which they settle in specified places may be laid down in greater or less detail. Settlement in areas expected to be more attractive than the settlers’ original homes has been promoted on a small scale in Africa, and on a much larger scale in Latin America, where one motive for the authorities has sometimes been the establishment of a population in frontier areas (Nelson, 1973).