Does the creation of a boreal hydroelectric reservoir result in a net change in evaporation?

Strachan, Ian B.; Tremblay, Alain; Pelletier, Luc; Tardif, Simon; Turpin, Christian; Nugent, Kelly A.

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.06.067

Cited by 29 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…The estimated water loss is thus significantly reduced. For example, Strachan et al (2016b), who investigated water consumption of the Eastmain-1 reservoir in northern Quebec, reported net water consumption to be within 19 to 34% of the gross water consumption. More recent studies also allocate the gross or net water consumption to the different uses of multipurpose reservoirs (Zhao and Liu 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of boreal hydroelectric reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling as simulated by the CRCM5: a case study of the La Grande River watershed, Canada

Irambona¹,

Music

Nadeau

et al. 2016

Theor Appl Climatol

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Located in northern Quebec, Canada, eight hydroelectric reservoirs of a 9782-km 2 maximal area cover 6.4% of the La Grande watershed. This study investigates the changes brought by the impoundment of these reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling. Two 30-year climate simulations, corresponding to pre-and post-impoundment conditions, were used. They were generated with the fifthgeneration Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM5), fully coupled to a 1D lake model (FLake). Seasonal temperatures and annual energy budget were generally well reproduced by the model, except in spring when a cold bias, probably related to the overestimation of snow cover, was seen. The difference in 2-m temperature shows that reservoirs induce localized warming in winter (+0.7 ± 0.02°C) and cooling in the summer (−0.3 ± 0.02°C). The available energy at the surface increases throughout the year, mostly due to a decrease in surface albedo. Fall latent and sensible heat fluxes are enhanced due to additional energy storage and availability in summer and spring. The changes in precipitation and runoff are within the model internal variability. At the watershed scale, reservoirs induce an additional evaporation of only 5.9 mm year −1 (2%). We use Brubaker's precipitation recycling model to estimate how much of the precipitation is recycled within the watershed. In both simulations, the maximal precipitation recycling occurs in July (less than 6%), indicating weak land-atmosphere coupling. Reservoirs do not seem to affect this coupling, as precipitation recycling only decreased by 0.6% in July.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of boreal hydroelectric reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling as simulated by the CRCM5: a case study of the La Grande River watershed, Canada

Irambona¹,

Music

Nadeau

et al. 2016

Theor Appl Climatol

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“…This study uses highly aggregated data and relatively nonspecific information to estimate evaporation and is not a substitute for detailed analysis of a particular water management system for high resolution decision making. For example, climatic data from a station within 100 miles of an aggregated reservoir centroid was considered adequate for this work, and evapotranspiration coefficients are general estimates rather than detailed measurements as used by Strachan et al (2016). Similarly, a coarse approximation of wet bulb temperature based on dew point temperature was used, which creates errors of up to 10% for summertime estimates in warm regions.…”

Section: Limitations and Recommended Use Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Water consumption from hydroelectricity in the United States

Grubert

2016

Advances in Water Resources

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Understanding the relationship between water and energy systems is important for effective management of both resources. Improved data availability has made more comprehensive modeling of hydropower and its water use possible, even as droughts and climate change have made questions about reservoir evaporation responsiveness more timely. This work makes three main contributions: first, it presents national and regional estimates of gross evaporation and evaporation net of evapotranspiration from local land cover ("net evaporation") for U.S. hydroelectricity, arguing that net evaporation is more consistent with other measures of energyrelated water intensity; second, it introduces and validates a method for estimating system-wide evaporation based on primary purpose allocation that reduces data requirements by two orders of magnitude; and third, it makes available for public use a full Penman-Monteith model with multiple built-in sensitivity analyses. Based on this model, the U.S. hydropower system consumes an estimated average of 1.7 m 3 of net freshwater per GJ electricity produced (11 m 3 /GJ gross).

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“…It seems to be a growing support to the net water consumption methodology as the proper approach in the calculation of the “true” water consumption from hydropower production (e.g., refs., ,). There are, however, clearly divergent scientific views on this, and the Water Footprint Manual prescribes using the gross evaporation values in water consumption assessments.…”

Section: Dilemmas Related To the Applied Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In more recent studies, water consumption based on net evaporation rates is more commonly reported (e.g., refs. ). When net evaporation rates are calculated, the evapotranspiration prior to the establishment of the reservoir is subtracted from the evaporation from the reservoir surface.…”

Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Water Footprint of Hydropower Production—State of the Art and Methodological Challenges

2017

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energy production, which has boosted large-scale investments in solar, wind, and hydropower. [5] There is a growing understanding of the close relation between water and energy, sometimes entitled the waterenergy nexus. [6][7][8][9][10] Water is highly needed in the development of energy resources, and access to energy is a prerequisite in the provision of water services. According to ref.[10], primary energy production and power generation accounted for roughly 10% of total worldwide water withdrawals and around 3% of total water consumption in 2014, which corresponds to withdrawals of around 400 billion m 3 annually. Several regions now experience water stress, [11] and access to water might constrain the further development of energy sources.Production of hydropower is exclusively dependent on the availability of the local water resources, and reduction in the available water will immediately reduce the power production. Among the world's 45 000 registered large dams and reservoirs, [12] ≈75% are classified as single purpose, meaning that they are used exclusively for one specific purpose. [13] The most common single purpose is irrigation (47%), followed by hydropower (19%), water supply (11%), flood control (9%), and the remaining recreation, navigation, and "unclassified." Among the multipurpose reservoirs, serving two or more functions, which is ≈25% of the registered dams, irrigation is also the most frequent purpose. 61% of the registered multipurpose reservoirs have irrigation as one of several functions, followed by flood control (50%), water supply (44%), hydropower production (40%), recreation (30%), and navigation (6%).The world's reservoirs are expected to play an even more important role for the society in the future. Climate change might reduce the available water in arid areas of the world, increase the runoff in wet areas, and change the seasonality. Large developments of intermittent power sources, such as wind and solar power, can also increase the need for flexible energy production, [10] served by for instance by hydropower with reservoirs. [14] This paper aims at:1. Reviewing published estimates of water consumption from hydropower production. 2. Presenting the methodology applied, identify shortcomings and propose improvements.

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Does the creation of a boreal hydroelectric reservoir result in a net change in evaporation?

Cited by 29 publications

References 81 publications

Impacts of boreal hydroelectric reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling as simulated by the CRCM5: a case study of the La Grande River watershed, Canada

Impacts of boreal hydroelectric reservoirs on seasonal climate and precipitation recycling as simulated by the CRCM5: a case study of the La Grande River watershed, Canada

Water consumption from hydroelectricity in the United States

The Water Footprint of Hydropower Production—State of the Art and Methodological Challenges

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