ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and analyzes a successful resettlement case where advance planning and analysis of social data in the planning process played important roles in avoiding negative consequences and improving the lives of the people affected by the project. Involuntary resettlement associated with the Arenal Hydroelectric Project in the Canton of Tilaran, Guanacaste, Costa Rica, was evaluated by the author for the Inter-American Development Bank in 1983, a decade after the program began. The survey was efficient and economical because it drew upon information gathered in the prior ethnographic sampling to construct precise questions relevant to local conditions and the practical problems of resettlement. In addition to demographic and economic fact-gathering, the survey was designed to elicit the needs, desires, and aspirations of the people affected with regard to the future resettlement. The Office of Resettlement drew up a list of characteristics of the new settlements based upon analysis of data from the studies.
