The Climate Resilient Hydro-power Generation in Colombia

Abstract

<p>Colombia holds a high hydro-climatic variability. An intense variability in climate and hydrological regimes directly affects several production sectors in Colombian economy. Such sectors as agriculture, livestock, hydro-power and water supply, among others, are the most sensible ones. Besides the evolution of climate towards a warmer planet, local disturbances are having places all around in Colombian territory. All these factors together are a source of risk for the country sustainable development. Colombian hydro-power sector is a major energy provider and also one of the most sensible sectors under extreme climatic and hydrological variability. The S-Multistor project is an initiative to understand How is it? the variability resilient aggregated water volume against climatic and hydrological extremes. Such a reservoir is expected to support the hydraulic energy generation even under very unexpected runs of extreme climatic phenomena. A Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov approach was used to model the changes in climate and hydrological variability. This stochastic modeling allowed to identify the the roles played by different drivers as climate evolution, the increasing of water and energy demand and the changes in land use and land cover. As a result, it was highlighted that there are several pathways that could lead to a resilient hydro-power generation taking advantage of the high spatial variability of Colombian hydrological and climatic regimes. This research shows how vulnerable is the Colombian hydro-power system to the current high temporal hydro-climatic variability and presents alternative pathways leading to a resilient hydro-power generation. Presented alternatives are related to the total water volume required for a climate resilient hydro-power generation but also to the distribution of this water storage in different hydro-climatic zones in Colombia.</p>