Freshwater Ecosystems versus Hydropower Development: Environmental Assessments and Conservation Measures in the Transboundary Amur River Basin

Abstract

Hydropower development causes a multitude of negative effects on freshwater ecosystems, and to prevent and minimize possible damage, environmental impact assessments must be conducted and optimal management scenarios designed. This paper examines the impacts of both existing and proposed hydropower development on the transboundary Amur River basin shared by Russia, China, and Mongolia, including the effectiveness of different tools and measures to minimize damage. It demonstrates that the application of various assessment and conservation tools at the proper time and in the proper sequence is the key factor in mitigating and minimizing the environmental impacts of dams. The tools considered include basin-wide assessments of hydropower impacts, the creation of protected areas on rivers threatened by dam construction, and environmental flows. The results of this work show how the initial avoidance and mitigation of hydropower impacts at early planning stages are more productive than the application of any measures during and after dam construction, that the assessment of hydropower impacts must be performed at a basin level rather than be limited to a project implementation site, and that the full spectrum of possible development scenarios should be considered. In addition, this project demonstrates that stakeholder analysis and robust public engagement are as crucial for the success of environmental assessments as scientific research is for the protection of river basins.

Environmental Flow Releases for Wetland Biodiversity Conservation in the Amur River Basin

“…Floods are the main natural disaster in the Amur River basin, negatively affecting the region's economy [30][31][32][33]. The most significant losses are common in the agriculture, industrial, and communal sectors [30,33].…”

“…In Russia, tens of thousands of people were evacuated and many lost homes. In China, the flood also brought great disasters, including human casualties [33]. After this extraordinary flood, plans to build from four to ten new dams for additional flow regulation in Russia were announced [32,41,42], but have not yet been implemented.…”

“…Alongside the construction of the Lower Bureya Dam, an environmental compensation program was undertaken by the hydropower company RusHydro, the local government, the UNDP/GEF, and ecologists [70,71]. The project aimed to minimize impacts of the construction of the Lower Bureya dam on the biodiversity of the terrestrial ecosystem but did not include measures such as environmental flow releases aimed at conserving freshwater ecosystems or species [70,72].…”

“…Over time, climate-driven transformation of freshwater ecosystems can lead to a change in the habitats of flora and fauna [1,95]. Climate change and its associated risks should be assessed to develop appropriate adaptation measures for a river basin [33,94].…”

The duty to take appropriate measures to prevent significant transboundary harm and private companies: insights from transboundary hydropower projects

“…Despite hydropower being seen as an important contributor to sustainable development, hydropower projects are not without their costs. These projects can lead to significant socio-ecological impacts, such as disrupting natural river flows, fragmenting river ecosystems, inhibiting migration paths and changing habitats, producing greenhouse gas emissions from reservoirs, and altering sedimentation flows (Simonov et al 2019). In turn, such changes can have a major impact on the livelihoods of populations reliant upon the ecosystem goods and services provided by river systems.…”