scholarly journals Impacts of Climate Change and Climate Variability on Hydropower Potential in Data-Scarce Regions Subjected to Multi-Decadal Variability

Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 2747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Arriagada ◽  
Bastien Dieppois ◽  
Moussa Sidibe ◽  
Oscar Link
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Decadal Variability ◽  
Hydropower Development ◽  
Climatic Oscillations ◽  
Global Circulation Models ◽  
Hydropower Potential ◽  
Hydropower Resource ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

To achieve sustainable development of hydroelectric resources, it is necessary to understand their availability, variability, and the expected impacts of climate change. Current research has mainly focused on estimating hydropower potential or determining the optimal locations for hydropower projects without considering the variability and historical trends of the resources. Herein, the hydropower potential variability from reconstructed streamflow series estimated with a non-parametric gap-filling method and geographic information systems (GIS) techniques are analyzed. The relationships between hydropower and large-scale climate variability, expressed by sea surface temperature, are explored. Finally, we project hydropower potential through 2050 using 15 global circulation models with representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5. We used four watersheds in central Chile as a case study. The results show significant interannual and inter-basin hydropower potential variability, with decreasing trends over time modulated by alternating positive and negative decadal trends; these modulations exhibit greater intensities than the general trends and are attributable to climatic oscillations such as El Niño. Future scenarios indicate high hydropower availability and a possible over-investment in hydroelectric plants in two of the four studied watersheds. Results show the need to improve the current policies that promote hydropower development including hydropower resource variability in order to achieve optimal, sustainable hydropower development worldwide.

scholarly journals Impacts of climate change, policy and Water-Energy-Food nexus on hydropower development

2018 ◽  
Vol 116 ◽  
pp. 827-834 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Zhang ◽  
Hong-Yi Li ◽  
Zhiqun Daniel Deng ◽  
Claudia Ringler ◽  
Yang Gao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Hydropower Development ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

In-stream turbines for sustainable hydropower development in the Amazon river basin

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suyog Chaudhari ◽  
Erik Brown ◽  
Raul Quispe-Abad ◽  
Emilio Moran ◽  
Norbert Mueller ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Basin ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Amazon River ◽  
River Ecology ◽  
Amazon River Basin ◽  
Hydropower Development ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Large Dams ◽  
Hydropower Potential

<p>Given the ongoing and planned hydropower development projects in the Amazon River basin, appalling losses in biodiversity, river ecology and river connectivity are inevitable. These hydropower projects are proposed to be built in exceptionally endemic sites, setting records in environmental losses by impeding fish movement, altering flood pulse, causing large-scale deforestation, and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. With the burgeoning energy demand combined with the aforementioned negative impacts of conventional hydropower technology, there is an imminent need to re-think the design of hydropower to avoid the potentially catastrophic consequences of large dams. It is certain that the Amazon will undergo some major hydrological changes in the near future because of the compounded effects of climate change and proposed dams, if built with the conventional hydropower technology. In this study, we present a transformative hydropower outlook that integrates low-head hydropower technology (e.g., in-stream turbines) and multiple environmental aspects, such as river ecology and protected areas. We employ a high resolution (~2km) continental scale hydrological model called LEAF-Hydro-Flood (LHF) to assess the in-stream hydropower potential in the Amazon River basin. We particularly focus on quantifying the potential and feasibility of employing instream turbines in the Amazon instead of building large dams. We show that a significant portion of the total energy planned to be generated from conventional hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon could be harnessed using in-stream turbines that utilize kinetic energy of water without requiring storage. Further, we also find that implementing in-stream turbines as an alternative to large storage-based dams could prove economically feasible, since most of the environmental and social costs associated with dams are eliminated. Our results open multiple pathways to achieve sustainable hydropower development in the Amazon to meet the ever-increasing energy demands while minimizing hydrological, social, and ecological impacts. It also provides important insight for sustainable hydropower development in other global regions. The results presented are based on a manuscript under revision for Nature Sustainability.</p>

Impact and uncertainty of climate projections on Alpine catchments using high-resolution models

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Sebastian Moraga ◽  
Nadav Peleg ◽  
Simone Fatichi ◽  
Peter Molnar ◽  
Paolo Burlando
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Climate Variability ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Internal Climate Variability ◽  
Mountainous Catchments ◽  
Precipitation Decrease ◽  
Alpine Catchments ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

<p>Hydrological processes in mountainous catchments will be subject to climate change on all scales, and their response is expected to vary considerably in space. Typical hydrological studies, which use coarse climate data inputs obtained from General Circulation Models (GCM) and Regional Climate Models (RCM), focus mostly on statistics at the outlet of the catchments, overlooking the effects within the catchments. Furthermore, the role of uncertainty, especially originated from natural climate variability, is rarely analyzed. In this work, we quantified the impacts of climate change on hydrological components and determined the sources of uncertainties in the projections for two mostly natural Swiss alpine catchments: Kleine Emme and Thur. Using a two-dimensional weather generator, AWE-GEN-2d, and based on nine different GCM-RCM model chains, we generated high-resolution (2 km, 1 hour) ensembles of gridded climate inputs until the end of the 21<sup>st</sup> century. The simulated variables were subsequently used as inputs into the fully distributed hydrological model Topkapi-ETH to estimate the changes in hydrological statistics at 100-m and hourly resolutions. Increased temperatures (by 4°C, on average) and changes in precipitation (decrease over high elevations by up to 10%, and increase at the lower elevation by up to 15%) results in increased evapotranspiration rates in the order of 10%, up to a 50% snowmelt, and drier soil conditions. These changes translate into important shifts in streamflow seasonality at the outlet of the catchments, with a significant increase during the winter months (up to 40%) and a reduction during the summer (up to 30%). Analysis at the sub-catchment scale reveals elevation-dependent hydrological responses: mean annual streamflow, as well as high and low flow extremes, are projected to decrease in the uppermost sub-catchments and increase in the lower ones. Furthermore, we computed the uncertainty of the estimations and compared them to the magnitude of the change signal. Although the signal-to-noise-ratio of extreme streamflow for most sub-catchments is low (below 0.5) there is a clear elevation dependency. In every case, internal climate variability (as opposed to climate model uncertainty) explains most of the uncertainty, averaging 85% for maximum and minimum flows, and 60% for mean flows. The results highlight the importance of modelling the distributed impacts of climate change on mountainous catchments, and of taking into account the role of internal climate variability in hydrological projections.</p>

scholarly journals Understanding Future Water Challenges in a Highly Regulated Indian River Basin—Modelling the Impact of Climate Change on the Hydrology of the Upper Narmada

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1762 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Rickards ◽  
Thomas Thomas ◽  
Alexandra Kaelin ◽  
Helen Houghton-Carr ◽  
Sharad K. Jain ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Monsoon Season ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
Global Circulation Models ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Availability Assessment

The Narmada river basin is a highly regulated catchment in central India, supporting a population of over 16 million people. In such extensively modified hydrological systems, the influence of anthropogenic alterations is often underrepresented or excluded entirely by large-scale hydrological models. The Global Water Availability Assessment (GWAVA) model is applied to the Upper Narmada, with all major dams, water abstractions and irrigation command areas included, which allows for the development of a holistic methodology for the assessment of water resources in the basin. The model is driven with 17 Global Circulation Models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) ensemble to assess the impact of climate change on water resources in the basin for the period 2031–2060. The study finds that the hydrological regime within the basin is likely to intensify over the next half-century as a result of future climate change, causing long-term increases in monsoon season flow across the Upper Narmada. Climate is expected to have little impact on dry season flows, in comparison to water demand intensification over the same period, which may lead to increased water stress in parts of the basin.

scholarly journals FRONTLINE: Climate change reporting in an Australian context: Recognition, adaptation and solutions

2013 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Fitzgerald
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Environmental Reporting ◽  
Context Recognition ◽  
Advocacy Journalism ◽  
Local Impacts ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Journalism Research ◽  
Journalistic Practice ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Exegesis: This exegesis is based on the production of three features that explore local impacts of climate change. The features are part of a journalism research project that investigated the question: how can journalistic practice generate an accurate, balanced account of climate change issues in Australia? The journalist rejects an approach that positions environmental reporting—or the ‘green beat’—as a form of advocacy journalism. In contrast, the researcher positions her journalism practice within mainstream Australian journalism. The researcher sets out to produce reports, which adhere to the conventional journalism norms, including those of ‘balance’ and ‘accuracy’. She explicitly critiques and rejects the phenomenon known as ‘balance as bias’, explored by Boykoff and Boycoff (2004) which, by over accessing climate sceptic sources, obstructs the reporting of climate change as an important economic, social, political and environmental issue. This exegesis explains and defends a different approach that focuses on local reporting rather than large-scale events in distant places. Robert Entman’s definition of framing is used to explain how climate change issues were addressed in each narrative.

scholarly journals Towards understanding hydroclimatic change in Victoria, Australia – why was the last decade so dry?

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 6181-6206 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. S. Kiem ◽  
D. C. Verdon-Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Seasonal Rainfall ◽  
Severe Drought ◽  
Physical Mechanisms ◽  
Drought Conditions ◽  
Hydroclimatic Change ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

Abstract. Since the mid-1990s Victoria, located in southeast Australia, has experienced severe drought conditions characterized by streamflow that is the lowest on record in many areas. While severe decreases in annual and seasonal rainfall totals have also been observed, this alone does not seem to explain the observed reduction in flow. In this study, we investigate the large-scale climate drivers for Victoria and demonstrate how these modulate the regional scale synoptic patterns, which in turn alter the way seasonal rainfall totals are compiled and the amount of runoff per unit rainfall that is produced. The hydrological implications are significant and illustrate the need for robust hydrological modelling, which takes into account insights into physical mechanisms that drive regional hydroclimatology, in order to properly understand and quantify the impacts of climate change (natural and/or anthropogenic) on water resources.

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