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Impacts of existing and planned hydropower dams on river fragmentation in the Balkan Region

Mauro Carolli, Carlos Garcia De Leaniz Orcid Logo, Joshua Jones, Barbara Belletti, Helena Huđek, Martin Pusch, Pencho Pandakov, Luca Borger Orcid Logo, Wouter van de Bund

Science of The Total Environment, Volume: 871, Start page: 161940

Swansea University Authors: Carlos Garcia De Leaniz Orcid Logo, Luca Borger Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161940

Abstract

The Balkan region has some of the best conserved rivers in Europe, but is also the location of ~3000 planned hydropower dams that are expected to help decarbonise energy production. A conflict between policies that promote renewable hydropower and those that prioritise river conservation has ensued,...

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Published in: Science of The Total Environment
ISSN: 0048-9697
Published: Elsevier BV 2023
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa62476
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A conflict between policies that promote renewable hydropower and those that prioritise river conservation has ensued, which can only be resolved with the help of reliable information. Using ground-truthed barrier data, we analysed the extent of current longitudinal river fragmentation in the Balkan region and simulated nine dam construction scenarios that varied depending on the number, location and size of the planned dams. Balkan rivers are currently fragmented by 83,017 barriers and have an average barrier density of 0.33 barriers/km after correcting for barrier underreporting; this is 2.2 times lower than the mean barrier density found across Europe and serves to highlight the relatively unfragmented nature of these rivers. However, our analysis shows that all simulated dam construction scenarios would result in a significant loss of connectivity compared to existing conditions. 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spelling 2023-02-09T09:54:39.3850125 v2 62476 2023-01-31 Impacts of existing and planned hydropower dams on river fragmentation in the Balkan Region 1c70acd0fd64edb0856b7cf34393ab02 0000-0003-1650-2729 Carlos Garcia De Leaniz Carlos Garcia De Leaniz true false 8416d0ffc3cccdad6e6d67a455e7c4a2 0000-0001-8763-5997 Luca Borger Luca Borger true false 2023-01-31 SBI The Balkan region has some of the best conserved rivers in Europe, but is also the location of ~3000 planned hydropower dams that are expected to help decarbonise energy production. A conflict between policies that promote renewable hydropower and those that prioritise river conservation has ensued, which can only be resolved with the help of reliable information. Using ground-truthed barrier data, we analysed the extent of current longitudinal river fragmentation in the Balkan region and simulated nine dam construction scenarios that varied depending on the number, location and size of the planned dams. Balkan rivers are currently fragmented by 83,017 barriers and have an average barrier density of 0.33 barriers/km after correcting for barrier underreporting; this is 2.2 times lower than the mean barrier density found across Europe and serves to highlight the relatively unfragmented nature of these rivers. However, our analysis shows that all simulated dam construction scenarios would result in a significant loss of connectivity compared to existing conditions. The largest loss of connectivity (−47 %), measured as reduction in barrier-free length, would occur if all planned dams were built, 20 % of which would impact on protected areas. The smallest loss of connectivity (−8 %) would result if only large dams (>10 MW) were built. In contrast, building only small dams (<10 MW) would cause a 45 % loss of connectivity while only contributing 32 % to future hydropower capacity. Hence, the construction of many small hydropower plants will cause a disproportionately large increase in fragmentation that will not be accompanied by a corresponding increase in hydropower. At present, hydropower development in the Balkan rivers does not require Strategic Environmental Assessment, and does not consider cumulative impacts. We encourage planners and policy makers to explicitly consider trade-offs between gains in hydropower and losses in river connectivity at the river basin scale. Journal Article Science of The Total Environment 871 161940 Elsevier BV 0048-9697 River connectivity; Dams; Trade-offs; Hydropower; Fragmentation; River conservation 1 5 2023 2023-05-01 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161940 COLLEGE NANME Biosciences COLLEGE CODE SBI Swansea University SU Library paid the OA fee (TA Institutional Deal) EC Horizon 2020 R&I Programme, grant 689682 (AMBER),Norwegian Research Centre for Hydropower Technology,Norges Forskningsråd, grant 257588 (Hydrocen),EUR H2O’Lyon,ANR-17-EURE-0018 2023-02-09T09:54:39.3850125 2023-01-31T14:12:38.9317078 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences Mauro Carolli 1 Carlos Garcia De Leaniz 0000-0003-1650-2729 2 Joshua Jones 3 Barbara Belletti 4 Helena Huđek 5 Martin Pusch 6 Pencho Pandakov 7 Luca Borger 0000-0001-8763-5997 8 Wouter van de Bund 9 62476__26511__5b1b8357b87e47efb2b27e1a7f2cd262.pdf 62476_VoR.pdf 2023-02-09T09:51:57.4011199 Output 4914941 application/pdf Version of Record true © 2023 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY license true eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Impacts of existing and planned hydropower dams on river fragmentation in the Balkan Region
spellingShingle Impacts of existing and planned hydropower dams on river fragmentation in the Balkan Region
Carlos Garcia De Leaniz
Luca Borger
title_short Impacts of existing and planned hydropower dams on river fragmentation in the Balkan Region
title_full Impacts of existing and planned hydropower dams on river fragmentation in the Balkan Region
title_fullStr Impacts of existing and planned hydropower dams on river fragmentation in the Balkan Region
title_full_unstemmed Impacts of existing and planned hydropower dams on river fragmentation in the Balkan Region
title_sort Impacts of existing and planned hydropower dams on river fragmentation in the Balkan Region
author_id_str_mv 1c70acd0fd64edb0856b7cf34393ab02
8416d0ffc3cccdad6e6d67a455e7c4a2
author_id_fullname_str_mv 1c70acd0fd64edb0856b7cf34393ab02_***_Carlos Garcia De Leaniz
8416d0ffc3cccdad6e6d67a455e7c4a2_***_Luca Borger
author Carlos Garcia De Leaniz
Luca Borger
author2 Mauro Carolli
Carlos Garcia De Leaniz
Joshua Jones
Barbara Belletti
Helena Huđek
Martin Pusch
Pencho Pandakov
Luca Borger
Wouter van de Bund
format Journal article
container_title Science of The Total Environment
container_volume 871
container_start_page 161940
publishDate 2023
institution Swansea University
issn 0048-9697
doi_str_mv 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.161940
publisher Elsevier BV
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchytype
hierarchy_top_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
document_store_str 1
active_str 0
description The Balkan region has some of the best conserved rivers in Europe, but is also the location of ~3000 planned hydropower dams that are expected to help decarbonise energy production. A conflict between policies that promote renewable hydropower and those that prioritise river conservation has ensued, which can only be resolved with the help of reliable information. Using ground-truthed barrier data, we analysed the extent of current longitudinal river fragmentation in the Balkan region and simulated nine dam construction scenarios that varied depending on the number, location and size of the planned dams. Balkan rivers are currently fragmented by 83,017 barriers and have an average barrier density of 0.33 barriers/km after correcting for barrier underreporting; this is 2.2 times lower than the mean barrier density found across Europe and serves to highlight the relatively unfragmented nature of these rivers. However, our analysis shows that all simulated dam construction scenarios would result in a significant loss of connectivity compared to existing conditions. The largest loss of connectivity (−47 %), measured as reduction in barrier-free length, would occur if all planned dams were built, 20 % of which would impact on protected areas. The smallest loss of connectivity (−8 %) would result if only large dams (>10 MW) were built. In contrast, building only small dams (<10 MW) would cause a 45 % loss of connectivity while only contributing 32 % to future hydropower capacity. Hence, the construction of many small hydropower plants will cause a disproportionately large increase in fragmentation that will not be accompanied by a corresponding increase in hydropower. At present, hydropower development in the Balkan rivers does not require Strategic Environmental Assessment, and does not consider cumulative impacts. We encourage planners and policy makers to explicitly consider trade-offs between gains in hydropower and losses in river connectivity at the river basin scale.
published_date 2023-05-01T04:22:07Z
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