Evaluating effects of dam operation on flow regimes and riverbed adaptation to those changes

Gierszewski, Piotr; Habel, Michał; Szmańda, Jacek; Luc, Małgorzata

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.136202

Cited by 108 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…However, this assumes stationarity of all other relevant drivers. Multiple studies have used his before/after approach to quantify how dams alter riverine hydrology (e.g., Forsberg et al, 2017;Sabo et al, 2017;Gierszewski et al, 2020) despite this limitation. Stationarity is assumed by hydrologic indicator methods, including IHA, but this assumption may not be valid when other variables (e.g., climate, land use, and management regimes) are dynamic or directional, which can be the case when assessing long-term hydrological trends (Milly et al, 2008;Salas and Obeysekera, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dam-Induced Hydrologic Alterations in the Rivers Feeding the Pantanal

Ely

Fantin-Cruz

Tritico

et al. 2020

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Tropical river basins have experienced dramatically increased hydropower development over the last 20 years. These alterations have the potential to cause changes in hydrologic and ecologic systems. One heavily impacted system is the Upper Paraguay River Basin, which feeds the Pantanal wetland. The Pantanal is a Ramsar Heritage site and is one of the world's largest freshwater wetlands. Over the past 20 years, the number of hydropower facilities in the Upper Paraguay River Basin has more than doubled. This paper uses the Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration (IHA) method to assess the impact of 24 of these dams on the hydrologic regime over 20 years (10 years before and 10 years after dam installation) and proposes a method to disentangle the effects of dams from other drivers of hydrologic change using undammed “control” rivers. While most of these dams are small, run-of-the-river systems, each dam significantly altered at least one of the 33 hydrologic indicators assessed. Across all studied dams, 88 of the 256 calculated indicators changed significantly, causing changes of 5–40%, compared to undammed reaches. These changes were most common in indicators that quantify the frequency and duration of high and low pulses, along with those for the rate and frequency of hydrologic changes. Importantly, the flow regime in several undammed reaches also showed significant alterations, likely due to climate and land-use changes, supporting the need for measurements in representative control systems when attributing causes to observed change. Basin-wide hydrologic changes (in both dammed and undammed rivers) have the potential to fundamentally alter the hydrology, sediment patterns, and ecosystem of the Pantanal wetland. The proposed refinement of the IHA methods reveals crucial differences between dam-induced alteration and those assigned to other drivers of change; these need to be better understood for more efficient management of current hydropower plants or the implementation of future dams.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dam-Induced Hydrologic Alterations in the Rivers Feeding the Pantanal

Ely

Fantin-Cruz

Tritico

et al. 2020

Front. Environ. Sci.

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“…The reservoir is 58 km long and its total capacity is 408 million m 3 [8]. In the 1971-2015 period, the Włocławek reservoir was on average supplied with 931.8 m 3 •s −1 of water, while the outflow from the reservoir amounted to 905.7 m 3 •s −1 [22].…”

Section: The Dam and Its Operationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The hydroelectric power plant on the dam in Włocławek in the years 1970-2002 discharged water for electricity generation needs [22]. This led to changes in the level of water near the dam by 2 to 3 m and intensified erosion downstream of the dam due to sudden changes in kinetic energy [9].…”

Section: The Dam and Its Operationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The flow is stopped for a few hours during the day during dam overhauls. In addition, emergency water discharges are carried out in connection with the passage of vessels transporting a large amount of cargo [22]. This type of operation contributes to changes in kinetic energy, and thus the rate of erosion downstream of the dam, but to a much smaller extent than during the first period of the power plant's operation ).…”

Section: The Dam and Its Operationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The minimum flow rate of the Vistula in Toruń was 158 m 3 s −1 in September 1992 [43]. New studies regarding the flow of water in the Vistula [22] indicate that in the period 1970-2015, the inflow of water into the Włocławek reservoir was larger than the outflow. Changes in the flow rates are also determined by the use of the reservoir during floods and emergency discharges for improving navigability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Effect of Emergency Water Discharges from the Dam in Włocławek on the Sedimentary Structures of Channel Bars in the Lower Flow Regime of the River Vistula

Hojan

Rurek

2021

Water

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Changes in the stream flow contribute to transformation of the river channel due to erosion and accumulation. Channel bars move as a result of water flow. This article presents the results of studies carried out on two channel bars formed in the River Vistula that were transformed during emergency discharges of water from the Włocławek reservoir. In order to present changes in structure and texture, pits were dug in the channel bars and samples were taken for grain-size analysis. The rate of migration of channel bars caused by emergency discharges was determined. Sedimentary structures were recorded as groups of strata indicating a variability in flow conditions (2D and 3D dunes, parasitic ripple marks, reactivation surfaces). It was observed that changes in the level of water and flow are reflected in sedimentary structures. The emergent channel bars are affected by aeolian processes that wear the flow marks off.

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Towards control of dam and reservoir systems with forward–backward stochastic differential equations driven by clustered jumps

Yoshioka

2022

Adv Control Appl

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We deal with a new maximum principle‐based stochastic control model for river management through operating a dam and reservoir system. The model is based on coupled forward–backward stochastic differential equations (FBSDEs) derived from jump‐driven streamflow dynamics and reservoir water balance. A continuous‐time branching process with immigration driven by a tempered stable subordinator efficiently describes clustered inflow streamflow dynamics. This is a completely new attempt in hydrology and control engineering. Applying a stochastic maximum principle to the dynamics based on an objective functional for designing cost‐efficient control of dam and reservoir systems leads to the FBSDEs as a system of optimality equations. The FBSDEs under a linear‐quadratic ansatz lead to a tractable model, while they are solved numerically in the other cases using a least‐squares Monte‐Carlo method. Optimal controls are found in the former, while only sub‐optimal ones are computable in the latter due to a hard state constraint. Model parameters are successfully identified from a real data of a river in Japan having a dam and reservoir system. We also show that the linear‐quadratic case can capture the real operation data of the system with underestimation of the outflow discharge. More complex cases with a realistic time horizon are analyzed numerically to investigate impacts of considering the environmental flows and seasonal operational purposes. Key challenges towards more sophisticated modeling and analysis with jump‐driven FBSDEs are discussed as well.

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Evaluating effects of dam operation on flow regimes and riverbed adaptation to those changes

Cited by 108 publications

References 70 publications

Dam-Induced Hydrologic Alterations in the Rivers Feeding the Pantanal

Dam-Induced Hydrologic Alterations in the Rivers Feeding the Pantanal

Effect of Emergency Water Discharges from the Dam in Włocławek on the Sedimentary Structures of Channel Bars in the Lower Flow Regime of the River Vistula

Towards control of dam and reservoir systems with forward–backward stochastic differential equations driven by clustered jumps

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