Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production
To enable prioritization among measures for ecological restoration, knowing the expected benefits and consequences of implementation is imperative but rarely explicitly quantified. We developed a novel method to prioritize among environmental flow measures to rehabilitate ecosystems in the Ume River...
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ftslunivuppsala:oai:pub.epsilon.slu.se:27199 2023-05-15T17:44:58+02:00 Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production Widén, Åsa Renofalt, Birgitta Malm Degerman, Erik Jansson, Roland 2022 application/pdf https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/27199/ https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/27199/1/widen_a_et_al_220224.pdf en eng eng https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/27199/1/widen_a_et_al_220224.pdf Widén, Åsa and Renofalt, Birgitta Malm and Degerman, Erik and Jansson, Roland (2022). Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production. Water Resources Research. 58 :1 , e2021WR030297 [Research article] Oceanography Hydrology Water Resources Ecology Research article NonPeerReviewed info:eu-repo/semantics/article 2022 ftslunivuppsala 2022-03-03T17:13:49Z To enable prioritization among measures for ecological restoration, knowing the expected benefits and consequences of implementation is imperative but rarely explicitly quantified. We developed a novel method to prioritize among environmental flow measures to rehabilitate ecosystems in the Ume River catchment in northern Sweden, a river system heavily regulated for hydropower production. Our strategy was to identify measures with minimal impact on hydropower production while providing substantial environmental benefits. Based on field surveys of remaining natural values and potential for ecological rehabilitation, we quantified the projected gain in habitat area of implementing environmental flows for target organism groups, for example, lotic fish species and riparian vegetation, along the whole river length. We quantified the consequences for hydropower production by identifying a set of hydropower operational rules reflecting the constraints added by environmental flows. We then used production optimization software to calculate changes in hydropower production and revenues. Implementing restrictions on zero-flow events by mandating minimum discharge at all run-of-river hydropower stations and allocating 1%-12% of mean annual discharge to bypassed reaches in the entire catchment would result in a 2.1% loss of annual electricity production. Adding flow to fishways would increase the loss to 3.1% per year. With implementation of more natural water-level fluctuations in run-of-river impoundments, the loss increases to 3.8%. These actions would increase the habitat for lotic species like the grayling Thymallus more than threefold and increase the area of riparian vegetation by about 66%. Our method forms a basis for ongoing implementation of nationwide environmental rehabilitation schemes. Article in Journal/Newspaper Northern Sweden Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU): Epsilon Open Archive |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU): Epsilon Open Archive |
op_collection_id |
ftslunivuppsala |
language |
English |
topic |
Oceanography Hydrology Water Resources Ecology |
spellingShingle |
Oceanography Hydrology Water Resources Ecology Widén, Åsa Renofalt, Birgitta Malm Degerman, Erik Jansson, Roland Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production |
topic_facet |
Oceanography Hydrology Water Resources Ecology |
description |
To enable prioritization among measures for ecological restoration, knowing the expected benefits and consequences of implementation is imperative but rarely explicitly quantified. We developed a novel method to prioritize among environmental flow measures to rehabilitate ecosystems in the Ume River catchment in northern Sweden, a river system heavily regulated for hydropower production. Our strategy was to identify measures with minimal impact on hydropower production while providing substantial environmental benefits. Based on field surveys of remaining natural values and potential for ecological rehabilitation, we quantified the projected gain in habitat area of implementing environmental flows for target organism groups, for example, lotic fish species and riparian vegetation, along the whole river length. We quantified the consequences for hydropower production by identifying a set of hydropower operational rules reflecting the constraints added by environmental flows. We then used production optimization software to calculate changes in hydropower production and revenues. Implementing restrictions on zero-flow events by mandating minimum discharge at all run-of-river hydropower stations and allocating 1%-12% of mean annual discharge to bypassed reaches in the entire catchment would result in a 2.1% loss of annual electricity production. Adding flow to fishways would increase the loss to 3.1% per year. With implementation of more natural water-level fluctuations in run-of-river impoundments, the loss increases to 3.8%. These actions would increase the habitat for lotic species like the grayling Thymallus more than threefold and increase the area of riparian vegetation by about 66%. Our method forms a basis for ongoing implementation of nationwide environmental rehabilitation schemes. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Widén, Åsa Renofalt, Birgitta Malm Degerman, Erik Jansson, Roland |
author_facet |
Widén, Åsa Renofalt, Birgitta Malm Degerman, Erik Jansson, Roland |
author_sort |
Widén, Åsa |
title |
Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production |
title_short |
Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production |
title_full |
Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production |
title_fullStr |
Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production |
title_full_unstemmed |
Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production |
title_sort |
environmental flow scenarios for a regulated river system: projecting catchment-wide ecosystem benefits and consequences for hydroelectric production |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/27199/ https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/27199/1/widen_a_et_al_220224.pdf |
genre |
Northern Sweden |
genre_facet |
Northern Sweden |
op_relation |
https://pub.epsilon.slu.se/27199/1/widen_a_et_al_220224.pdf Widén, Åsa and Renofalt, Birgitta Malm and Degerman, Erik and Jansson, Roland (2022). Environmental Flow Scenarios for a Regulated River System: Projecting Catchment-Wide Ecosystem Benefits and Consequences for Hydroelectric Production. Water Resources Research. 58 :1 , e2021WR030297 [Research article] |
_version_ |
1766147670009708544 |