Evaluating cumulative effects of small scale hydropower development using GIS modelling and representativeness assessments
Assessing cumulative effects are a vital task for strategic environmental assessments (SEA) but lack of consistent methodology has hampered the development and implementation of useful tools. We present a model for GIS and multivariate analysis to assess the effects on a valued ecosystem type at a r...
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ftninstnf:oai:brage.nina.no:11250/2671492 2023-05-15T17:43:24+02:00 Evaluating cumulative effects of small scale hydropower development using GIS modelling and representativeness assessments Erikstad, Lars Hagen, Dagmar Stange, Erik Bakkestuen, Vegar Norway, northern Norway 2020 application/pdf https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2671492 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2020.106458 eng eng urn:issn:0195-9255 https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2671492 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2020.106458 cristin:1822153 Navngivelse 4.0 Internasjonal http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.no © 2020 The Authors. CC-BY 85 Environmental impact assessment review Cumulative effect Valued ecosystem component (VEC) Representativeness Hydropower developments VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Geofag: 450 VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Zoologiske og botaniske fag: 480 Journal article 2020 ftninstnf https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2020.106458 2021-12-23T07:16:54Z Assessing cumulative effects are a vital task for strategic environmental assessments (SEA) but lack of consistent methodology has hampered the development and implementation of useful tools. We present a model for GIS and multivariate analysis to assess the effects on a valued ecosystem type at a regional scale based on the sum of impacts of local projects. We demonstrate application of the model by assessing how hydropower developments would generate cumulative impacts on river gorges for a county in northern Norway. We use principal component analyses (PCA) of spatially-explicit variables from the region to describe the diversity of river gorge ecology with a mathematical low-dimensional bioclimatic space. We then calculate cumulative effects of hydropower development as the proportions of subspaces of the multidimensional bioclimatic PCA that are affected by either existing infrastructure or planned and possible hydropower developments. The results showed that adding development of all potential sites for small-scale hydropower would have substantial impacts on over half of all bioclimatic segments where gorges were registered and more than 70% of all segments with forested river gorges. By demonstrating these possible cumulative effects we can illustrate the need for caution in hydropower planning to avoid reducing river gorge representativeness and diversity. The method can be applied for other types of development projects and other valued ecosystems, provided the assessed ecosystems and development installations can be mapped or modelled over a sufficiently large area. publishedVersion Article in Journal/Newspaper Northern Norway Norwegian Institute for Nature Research: Brage NINA Norway Environmental Impact Assessment Review 85 106458 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Norwegian Institute for Nature Research: Brage NINA |
op_collection_id |
ftninstnf |
language |
English |
topic |
Cumulative effect Valued ecosystem component (VEC) Representativeness Hydropower developments VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Geofag: 450 VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Zoologiske og botaniske fag: 480 |
spellingShingle |
Cumulative effect Valued ecosystem component (VEC) Representativeness Hydropower developments VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Geofag: 450 VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Zoologiske og botaniske fag: 480 Erikstad, Lars Hagen, Dagmar Stange, Erik Bakkestuen, Vegar Evaluating cumulative effects of small scale hydropower development using GIS modelling and representativeness assessments |
topic_facet |
Cumulative effect Valued ecosystem component (VEC) Representativeness Hydropower developments VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Geofag: 450 VDP::Matematikk og Naturvitenskap: 400::Zoologiske og botaniske fag: 480 |
description |
Assessing cumulative effects are a vital task for strategic environmental assessments (SEA) but lack of consistent methodology has hampered the development and implementation of useful tools. We present a model for GIS and multivariate analysis to assess the effects on a valued ecosystem type at a regional scale based on the sum of impacts of local projects. We demonstrate application of the model by assessing how hydropower developments would generate cumulative impacts on river gorges for a county in northern Norway. We use principal component analyses (PCA) of spatially-explicit variables from the region to describe the diversity of river gorge ecology with a mathematical low-dimensional bioclimatic space. We then calculate cumulative effects of hydropower development as the proportions of subspaces of the multidimensional bioclimatic PCA that are affected by either existing infrastructure or planned and possible hydropower developments. The results showed that adding development of all potential sites for small-scale hydropower would have substantial impacts on over half of all bioclimatic segments where gorges were registered and more than 70% of all segments with forested river gorges. By demonstrating these possible cumulative effects we can illustrate the need for caution in hydropower planning to avoid reducing river gorge representativeness and diversity. The method can be applied for other types of development projects and other valued ecosystems, provided the assessed ecosystems and development installations can be mapped or modelled over a sufficiently large area. publishedVersion |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Erikstad, Lars Hagen, Dagmar Stange, Erik Bakkestuen, Vegar |
author_facet |
Erikstad, Lars Hagen, Dagmar Stange, Erik Bakkestuen, Vegar |
author_sort |
Erikstad, Lars |
title |
Evaluating cumulative effects of small scale hydropower development using GIS modelling and representativeness assessments |
title_short |
Evaluating cumulative effects of small scale hydropower development using GIS modelling and representativeness assessments |
title_full |
Evaluating cumulative effects of small scale hydropower development using GIS modelling and representativeness assessments |
title_fullStr |
Evaluating cumulative effects of small scale hydropower development using GIS modelling and representativeness assessments |
title_full_unstemmed |
Evaluating cumulative effects of small scale hydropower development using GIS modelling and representativeness assessments |
title_sort |
evaluating cumulative effects of small scale hydropower development using gis modelling and representativeness assessments |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2671492 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2020.106458 |
op_coverage |
Norway, northern Norway |
geographic |
Norway |
geographic_facet |
Norway |
genre |
Northern Norway |
genre_facet |
Northern Norway |
op_source |
85 Environmental impact assessment review |
op_relation |
urn:issn:0195-9255 https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2671492 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2020.106458 cristin:1822153 |
op_rights |
Navngivelse 4.0 Internasjonal http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.no © 2020 The Authors. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2020.106458 |
container_title |
Environmental Impact Assessment Review |
container_volume |
85 |
container_start_page |
106458 |
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1766145455561900032 |