A New Tool for Assessing Environmental Impacts of Altering Short-Term Flow and Water Level Regimes

Bejarano, María Dolores; García‐Palacios, Jaime H.; Sordo‐Ward, Álvaro; Garrote, Luís

doi:10.3390/w12102913

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…When compared to natural conditions, hydropeaking‐induced changes in flow shift frequency and relative flow duration may therefore significantly accelerate shifts of the habitat mosaic and reduce the duration of stable habitat conditions between the shifts (Archer & Newson, 2002; Clausen & Biggs, 1997). Only recently, methods have been proposed to quantify the impacts of hydropeaking on flow frequency and duration (e.g., see Bejarano, García‐Palacios, Sordo‐Ward, Garrote, & Nilsson, 2020; Bevelhimer, McManamay, & O'Connor, 2015; Greimel et al, 2016; Sauterleute & Charmasson, 2014; Zimmerman, Letcher, Nislow, Lutz, & Magilligan, 2010).…”

Section: The Nervous Flow Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A limiting factor for applying a time‐series approach can be the availability of flow data. However, many hydropeaking reaches are equipped with public or hydropower‐owned gauging stations allowing for a sub‐daily analysis of the flow (e.g., Bejarano, García‐Palacios, et al, 2020; Bevelhimer et al, 2015; Carolli et al, 2015; Charmasson & Zinke, 2015; Greimel et al, 2016; Meile, Boillat, & Schleiss, 2011; Zimmerman et al, 2010).…”

Section: Challenges For Quantifying Habitat Dynamics At the Patch‐scalementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Peak flows can be more than ten times higher than the daily minimum flow (e.g., Premstaller et al, 2017;Tonolla, Bruder, & Schweizer, 2017) and peaking frequency two orders of magnitude larger than in natural systems (Archer & Newson, 2002;Greimel et al, 2016). Most native organism are not adapted to such pronounced and frequent dynamics in their habitat patches (Palmer & Ruhi, 2019), and hydropeaking impacts affecting the structure, abundance, and diversity of aquatic communities have been documented, such as for invertebrates (e.g., Kennedy et al, 2016), fish (e.g., Wegscheider, Linnansaari, Monk, & Curry, 2020), riparian vegetation (e.g., Bejarano, Jansson, & Nilsson, 2018), and the overall food web (e.g., Holzapfel, Leitner, Habersack, Graf, & Hauer, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nervous habitat patches: The effect of hydropeaking on habitat dynamics

Bätz

Judes

Weber

2022

River Research & Apps

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Alteration in the river flow regime due to intermittent hydropower production (i.e., hydropeaking) leads to biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation worldwide.Due to the increasing shear of volatile green energy (i.e., wind and solar), hydropeaking frequency is deemed to increase in the coming decades. However, our mechanistic understanding of how the frequency of repeated hydropeaking (i.e., series of multiple events) affects ecological processes is still limited. Here, we reflect on the impacts of altered flow frequency and relative duration on the persistency of aquatic habitats. We focus on the habitats at patch-scale, being this the scale representing what organisms perceive when interacting with their environment. With a showcase we explore a temporally explicit approach to quantify altered habitat dynamics at patch-scale due to hydropeaking. We then review how changes in habitat dynamics and persistency may affect ecological processes. Our findings suggest that (i) a timeseries approach allows to account for the inherent multi-event nature of hydropeaking; (ii) hydropeaking can increase the dynamics of single habitat patches by at least one order of magnitude if compared to unregulated rivers; (iii) altered habitat dynamics at the patch scale can affect the survival of more sessile species and life cycle stages (e.g., invertebrates) or the energy budget of mobile species and life cycle stages (e.g., adult fish). However, the ecological significance and potential environmental thresholds of patch-scale dynamics and persistency are still poorly investigated and need further attention. Moreover, methods for the aggregation of habitat dynamics and persistency from the patch to the reach-scale are not available yet.

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Section: The Nervous Flow Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Challenges For Quantifying Habitat Dynamics At the Patch‐scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nervous habitat patches: The effect of hydropeaking on habitat dynamics

Bätz

Judes

Weber

2022

River Research & Apps

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“…Greimel et al (2016) present a general framework for discharge analysis that can classify different types of flow fluctuation including hydropeaking and small amplitude artificial fluctuations termed hydro fibrillations. Several methods aimed at describing changes in the operations of power plants through analysis of regulated and unregulated time series have also been developed (e.g., Bejarano et al, 2020; Bejarano, Sordo‐Ward, et al, 2017; Bevelhimer et al, 2014). The above methods provide indices describing hydrological alterations due to hydropeaking and are used to evaluate aspects of flow changes over time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of flow ramping on stranding potential related to river morphology—Developing hydraulic indices for peaking severity

Alfredsen,

Tekle

2023

River Research & Apps

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Stranding can be an important negative effect downstream of peaking power plants. Much work is put into computing indices of peaking operation based on flow data from power plant outlets or in reaches downstream of power plants. Such indices give good measures of the frequency and magnitude of hydropeaking and indirectly the potential severity of the operation. To address stranding potential local studies are needed to find measures that relate river geometry to dewatered areas and dewatering speeds and the length of river downstream that is affected by the power plant operation. In recent years, high‐precision laser scans have become available for some Norwegian rivers making it possible to do hydraulic modeling on a scale that can describe the dewatering process in detail. The new data also provides details on the river valley and areas adjacent to the rivers. Using these data, we have carried out simulations for peaking operations in several rivers and computed indices of hydraulic effects of potential shutdown hydrographs. The results show a dampening effect in all rivers and a significant relationship between river features like distance from outlet and cross section geometry and the hydraulic dependent indices ramping rate and dewatering rate. These relations could be a method for initial assessment of the effect of hydropeaking on rivers and a foundation for deciding on where more detailed studies will be needed.

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“…They produced a set of Pareto optimal configurations that may be used by policymakers to emphasize water availability or flood protection. Bejarano et al [19] offered a computational tool intended to summarize data on sub-daily streamflow into manageable, comprehensive, and ecologically meaningful metrics, which can be used to qualify and quantify flow alteration. This tool may be used by policymakers to evaluate the potential ecological consequences of the hydrological alteration produced by water infrastructure.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%