Characterizing Effects of Hydropower Plants on Sub-Daily Flow Regimes
A characterization of short-term changes in river flow is essential for understanding the ecological effects of hydropower plants, which operate by turning the turbines on or off to generate electricity following variations in the market demand (i.e., hydropeaking). The goal of our study was to deve...
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ftunivpmadrid:oai:oa.upm.es:50499 2023-05-15T17:45:05+02:00 Characterizing Effects of Hydropower Plants on Sub-Daily Flow Regimes Bejarano Carrión, María Dolores Sordo Ward, Álvaro Francisco Alonso González, Carlos Nilsson, Christer 2017-04-20 application/pdf https://oa.upm.es/50499/ eng eng E.T.S.I. Caminos, Canales y Puertos (UPM) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169417302433 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/623691 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.04.023 https://oa.upm.es/50499/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC-BY-NC-ND Journal of Hydrology, ISSN 0022-1694, 2017-04-20, Vol. 550 Ingeniería Civil y de la Construcción Medio Ambiente info:eu-repo/semantics/article Artículo PeerReviewed 2017 ftunivpmadrid https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.04.023 2022-06-06T18:22:27Z A characterization of short-term changes in river flow is essential for understanding the ecological effects of hydropower plants, which operate by turning the turbines on or off to generate electricity following variations in the market demand (i.e., hydropeaking). The goal of our study was to develop an approach for characterizing the effects of hydropower plant operations on within-day flow regimes across multiple dams and rivers. For this aim we first defined ecologically meaningful metrics that provide a full representation of the flow regime at short time scales from free-flowing rivers and rivers exposed to hydropeaking. We then defined metrics that enable quantification of the deviation of the altered short-term flow regime variables from those of the unaltered state. The approach was successfully tested in two rivers in northern Sweden, one free-flowing and another regulated by cascades of hydropower plants, which were additionally classified based on their impact on short-term flows in sites of similar management. The largest differences between study sites corresponded to metrics describing sub-daily flow magnitudes such as amplitude (i.e., difference between the highest and the lowest hourly flows) and rates (i.e., rise and fall rates of hourly flows). They were closely followed by frequency-related metrics accounting for the numbers of within-day hourly flow patterns (i.e., rises, falls and periods of stability of hourly flows). In comparison, between-site differences for the duration-related metrics were smallest. In general, hydropeaking resulted in higher within-day flow amplitudes and rates and more but shorter periods of a similar hourly flow patterns per day. The impacted flow feature and the characteristics of the impact (i.e., intensity and whether the impact increases or decreases whatever is being described by the metric) varied with season. Our approach is useful for catchment management planning, defining environmental flow targets, prioritizing river restoration or dam reoperation ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Northern Sweden Archivo Digital UPM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) Journal of Hydrology 550 186 200 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Archivo Digital UPM (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) |
op_collection_id |
ftunivpmadrid |
language |
English |
topic |
Ingeniería Civil y de la Construcción Medio Ambiente |
spellingShingle |
Ingeniería Civil y de la Construcción Medio Ambiente Bejarano Carrión, María Dolores Sordo Ward, Álvaro Francisco Alonso González, Carlos Nilsson, Christer Characterizing Effects of Hydropower Plants on Sub-Daily Flow Regimes |
topic_facet |
Ingeniería Civil y de la Construcción Medio Ambiente |
description |
A characterization of short-term changes in river flow is essential for understanding the ecological effects of hydropower plants, which operate by turning the turbines on or off to generate electricity following variations in the market demand (i.e., hydropeaking). The goal of our study was to develop an approach for characterizing the effects of hydropower plant operations on within-day flow regimes across multiple dams and rivers. For this aim we first defined ecologically meaningful metrics that provide a full representation of the flow regime at short time scales from free-flowing rivers and rivers exposed to hydropeaking. We then defined metrics that enable quantification of the deviation of the altered short-term flow regime variables from those of the unaltered state. The approach was successfully tested in two rivers in northern Sweden, one free-flowing and another regulated by cascades of hydropower plants, which were additionally classified based on their impact on short-term flows in sites of similar management. The largest differences between study sites corresponded to metrics describing sub-daily flow magnitudes such as amplitude (i.e., difference between the highest and the lowest hourly flows) and rates (i.e., rise and fall rates of hourly flows). They were closely followed by frequency-related metrics accounting for the numbers of within-day hourly flow patterns (i.e., rises, falls and periods of stability of hourly flows). In comparison, between-site differences for the duration-related metrics were smallest. In general, hydropeaking resulted in higher within-day flow amplitudes and rates and more but shorter periods of a similar hourly flow patterns per day. The impacted flow feature and the characteristics of the impact (i.e., intensity and whether the impact increases or decreases whatever is being described by the metric) varied with season. Our approach is useful for catchment management planning, defining environmental flow targets, prioritizing river restoration or dam reoperation ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Bejarano Carrión, María Dolores Sordo Ward, Álvaro Francisco Alonso González, Carlos Nilsson, Christer |
author_facet |
Bejarano Carrión, María Dolores Sordo Ward, Álvaro Francisco Alonso González, Carlos Nilsson, Christer |
author_sort |
Bejarano Carrión, María Dolores |
title |
Characterizing Effects of Hydropower Plants on Sub-Daily Flow Regimes |
title_short |
Characterizing Effects of Hydropower Plants on Sub-Daily Flow Regimes |
title_full |
Characterizing Effects of Hydropower Plants on Sub-Daily Flow Regimes |
title_fullStr |
Characterizing Effects of Hydropower Plants on Sub-Daily Flow Regimes |
title_full_unstemmed |
Characterizing Effects of Hydropower Plants on Sub-Daily Flow Regimes |
title_sort |
characterizing effects of hydropower plants on sub-daily flow regimes |
publisher |
E.T.S.I. Caminos, Canales y Puertos (UPM) |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://oa.upm.es/50499/ |
genre |
Northern Sweden |
genre_facet |
Northern Sweden |
op_source |
Journal of Hydrology, ISSN 0022-1694, 2017-04-20, Vol. 550 |
op_relation |
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169417302433 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/623691 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.04.023 https://oa.upm.es/50499/ |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY-NC-ND |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.04.023 |
container_title |
Journal of Hydrology |
container_volume |
550 |
container_start_page |
186 |
op_container_end_page |
200 |
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1766147820487704576 |