Empirical characterization factors to be used in LCA and assessing the effects of hydropower on fish richness

Turgeon, Katrine; Trottier, Germain; Turpin, Christian; Bulle, Cécile; Margni, Manuele

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107047

Cited by 20 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…In fact, this finding follows global patterns where fishes were one of the most frequently studied groups used to evaluate effects of hydroelectric dams in both temperate (Algera et al, 2020) and tropical regions (Arantes et al, 2019). But, impacts of run-of-river dams are poorly studied even for fish the most intensively studied group (Turgeon et al, 2021). Moreover, there is a lack of studies on mutiple vertebrate groups, which is essential to understand hydroelectric effects on complex hydrological systems such as the Amazon .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

“…We focused on vertebrates as this group includes fish which is perhaps the most intensively studied wilfdlife group in terms of hydropower impacts globally (Algera et al, 2020;Arantes et al, 2019;Turgeon et al, 2021). As such vertebrates should present a best case scenario for the scientific evidence documenting hydropower impacts on Amazonian wildlife.…”

Section: Study Identification and Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of reviews document impacts of dams across the Amazon (Athayde, Mathews, et al, 2019;Ferreira et al, 2014;Lees et al, 2016). Recently several studies evaluated the impacts of hydroelectrics on water flow, sediments, and on aquatic Amazonian species, mostly fishes (Athayde, Mathews, et al, 2019;Castello et al, 2013;Latrubesse et al, 2017;Turgeon et al, 2021). But these and other reviews did not evaluate the quality of evidence presented in the primary studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding hydropower impacts on Amazonian wildlife is limited by a lack of robust evidence: results from a systematic review

Santos

Michalski

Norris

2021

Preprint

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Background and Research Aims: Although hydropower provides energy to fuel economic development across Amazonia, strategies to minimize or mitigate impacts in highly biodiverse Amazonian environments remain unclear. The growing number of operational and planned hydroelectrics requires robust scientific evidence to evaluate impacts of these projects on Amazonian vertebrates. Here we investigated the existing scientific knowledge base documenting impacts of hydropower developments on vertebrates across Brazilian Amazonia. Methods: We reviewed the scientific literature from 1945 to 2020 published in English, Spanish and Portuguese to assess the temporal and spatial patterns in publications and the types of study design adopted as well as scientific evidence presented. Results: A total of 24 published articles documented impacts on fish (n = 20), mammals (n = 3) and freshwater turtles (n = 1). Most study designs (87.5%) lacked appropriate controls and only three studies adopted more robust Before-After-Control-Impact designs. The published evidence did not generally support causal inference with only two studies (8.3%) including appropriate controls and/or confounding variables. Conclusion: Decades of published assessments (54.2% of which were funded by hydropower developers or their subsidiaries) do not appear to have established robust evidence of impacts of hydropower developments on Amazonian vertebrates. This lack of robust evidence could limit the development of effective minimization and mitigation actions for the diverse vertebrate groups impacted by hydroelectrics across Brazilian Amazonia. Implications for Conservation: To avoid misleading inferences there is a need to integrate more robust study designs into impact assessments of hydropower developments in the Brazilian Amazon.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Section: Study Identification and Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding hydropower impacts on Amazonian wildlife is limited by a lack of robust evidence: results from a systematic review

Santos

Michalski

Norris

2021

Preprint

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“…The analysis was based on a single species and tropical rivers include innumerable biodiversity that remains to be evaluated. Indeed, even for arguably the most intensely studied group (fishes) a recent review established a lack of results documenting impacts generated by run-of-river dams in tropical regions (Turgeon et al, 2021). Therefore, there is an urgent need for studies to generate more robust evidence documenting the biological impacts of hydropower developments in tropical regions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amazonian run-of-river dam reservoir impacts underestimated: Evidence from a Before-After Control-Impact study of freshwater turtle nesting areas

Bárcenas-García

Michalski

Gibbs

et al. 2021

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1. Although the construction of hydropower dams is widely assumed to generate myriad negative impacts on biodiversity there remains a lack of robust scientific evidence documenting the magnitude of these impacts particularly across highly biodiverse tropical waterways. Hydropower expansion is an increasing threat to the Endangered yellow-spotted river turtle (Podocnemis unifilis) across its tropical South American range. 2. Turtle nesting-areas were monitored as an indicator of dry-season river level changes following run-of-river dam reservoir filling. A Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) study design was established with multi-year field campaigns monitoring turtle nesting-areas along 66 km of river upstream of the dam, separated into 33 km control and impact zones. 3. The cause and extent of changes in nesting-areas was established using Generalized Additive Models. Nesting-area density was examined in relation to four variables: Before-After, Control-Impact, distance to the dam and precipitation. The extent of changes was examined by comparing the proportion of nesting-areas remaining in subzones during the four years after reservoir filling. 4. Comparison of the proportion of nesting-areas remaining after dam construction showed that a permanent dry season river level rise extended more than 20 km beyond impact assessment limits. On average the density of nesting-areas declined 69% (from 0.48 to 0.15 per km) across 33 km of river directly impacted by the dam. This loss was reflected in a significant BACI interaction. The variation in nesting-areas was not explained by seasonal precipitation, whilst nesting-area density increased significantly further away from the dam. 5. Standardized monitoring of freshwater turtle nesting-areas provided an effective means to quantify impacts of hydropower developments across biodiverse yet rapidly changing waterways. The negative impacts should be preventable by mitigation actions including habitat restoration and dry season flow regulation. Such measures are also likely to benefit multiple species in highly diverse Amazonian rivers increasingly impacted by run-of-river dams.

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“…The impacts of the transformation of a river into a reservoir (and its subsequent occupation by the reservoir, for a given amount of time) on ecosystem quality have received little attention in LCA. To our knowledge, only a few attempts have been made to evaluate changes in fish richness in relation to hydropower within a LCA framework (see Turgeon et al [35] and Dorber et al [36]). Moreover, this type of work has only been conducted on fish [35] and/or mostly relies on theoretical species richness curves, such as the Species-Discharge Relationship (SDR) [36] or the Species-Area Relationship (SAR).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Characterization Factors for Life Cycle Assessment of the Impacts of Reservoir Occupation on Macroinvertebrate Richness across the United States

et al. 2021

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The transformation of a river into a reservoir and the subsequent occupation of the riverbed by a reservoir can impact freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity. We used the National Lake Assessment (134 reservoirs) and the National Rivers and Streams Assessment (2062 rivers and streams) of the United States Environmental Protection Agency in order to develop empirical characterization factors (CFs; in Potentially Disappeared Fraction of species [PDF]) evaluating the impacts of reservoir occupation on macroinvertebrate richness (number of taxa) at the reservoir, ecoregion and country spatial scales, using a space-for-time substitution. We used analyses of variance, variation partitioning, and multiple regression analysis to explain the role of ecoregion (or regionalization; accounting for spatial variability) and other potentially influential variables (physical, chemical and anthropogenic), on PDFs. At the United States scale, 28% of macroinvertebrate taxa disappeared during reservoir occupation and PDFs followed a longitudinal gradient across ecoregions, where PDFs were higher in the west. We also observed that high elevation, oligotrophic and large reservoirs had high PDF. This study provides the first empirical macroinvertebrate-based PDFs for reservoir occupation to be used as CFs by LCA practitioners. The results provide strong support for regionalization and a simple empirical model for LCA modelers.

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Empirical characterization factors to be used in LCA and assessing the effects of hydropower on fish richness

Cited by 20 publications

References 68 publications

Understanding hydropower impacts on Amazonian wildlife is limited by a lack of robust evidence: results from a systematic review

Understanding hydropower impacts on Amazonian wildlife is limited by a lack of robust evidence: results from a systematic review

Amazonian run-of-river dam reservoir impacts underestimated: Evidence from a Before-After Control-Impact study of freshwater turtle nesting areas

Empirical Characterization Factors for Life Cycle Assessment of the Impacts of Reservoir Occupation on Macroinvertebrate Richness across the United States

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