TY - JOUR
T1 - Reducing adverse impacts of Amazon hydropower expansion
AU - Flecker, Alexander S.
AU - Shi, Qinru
AU - Almeida, Rafael M.
AU - Angarita, Héctor
AU - Gomes-Selman, Jonathan M.
AU - García-Villacorta, Roosevelt
AU - Sethi, Suresh A.
AU - Thomas, Steven A.
AU - LeRoy Poff, N.
AU - Forsberg, Bruce R.
AU - Heilpern, Sebastian A.
AU - Hamilton, Stephen K.
AU - Abad, Jorge D.
AU - Anderson, Elizabeth P.
AU - Barros, Nathan
AU - Bernal, Isabel Carolina
AU - Bernstein, Richard
AU - Cañas, Carlos M.
AU - Dangles, Olivier
AU - Encalada, Andrea C.
AU - Fleischmann, Ayan S.
AU - Goulding, Michael
AU - Higgins, Jonathan
AU - Jézéquel, Céline
AU - Larson, Erin I.
AU - McIntyre, Peter B.
AU - Melack, John M.
AU - Montoya, Mariana
AU - Oberdorff, Thierry
AU - Paiva, Rodrigo
AU - Perez, Guillaume
AU - Rappazzo, Brendan H.
AU - Steinschneider, Scott
AU - Torres, Sandra
AU - Varese, Mariana
AU - Walter, M. Todd
AU - Wu, Xiaojian
AU - Xue, Yexiang
AU - Zapata-Ríos, Xavier E.
AU - Gomes, Carla P.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved.
PY - 2022/2/18
Y1 - 2022/2/18
N2 - Proposed hydropower dams at more than 350 sites throughout the Amazon require strategic evaluation of trade-offs between the numerous ecosystem services provided by Earth's largest and most biodiverse river basin. These services are spatially variable, hence collective impacts of newly built dams depend strongly on their configuration. We use multiobjective optimization to identify portfolios of sites that simultaneously minimize impacts on river flow, river connectivity, sediment transport, fish diversity, and greenhouse gas emissions while achieving energy production goals. We find that uncoordinated, dam-by-dam hydropower expansion has resulted in forgone ecosystem service benefits. Minimizing further damage from hydropower development requires considering diverse environmental impacts across the entire basin, as well as cooperation among Amazonian nations. Our findings offer a transferable model for the evaluation of hydropower expansion in transboundary basins.
AB - Proposed hydropower dams at more than 350 sites throughout the Amazon require strategic evaluation of trade-offs between the numerous ecosystem services provided by Earth's largest and most biodiverse river basin. These services are spatially variable, hence collective impacts of newly built dams depend strongly on their configuration. We use multiobjective optimization to identify portfolios of sites that simultaneously minimize impacts on river flow, river connectivity, sediment transport, fish diversity, and greenhouse gas emissions while achieving energy production goals. We find that uncoordinated, dam-by-dam hydropower expansion has resulted in forgone ecosystem service benefits. Minimizing further damage from hydropower development requires considering diverse environmental impacts across the entire basin, as well as cooperation among Amazonian nations. Our findings offer a transferable model for the evaluation of hydropower expansion in transboundary basins.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124779691&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85124779691&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1126/science.abj4017
DO - 10.1126/science.abj4017
M3 - Article
C2 - 35175810
AN - SCOPUS:85124779691
SN - 0036-8075
VL - 375
SP - 753
EP - 760
JO - Science
JF - Science
IS - 6582
ER -