Sustainability Concern|Unsustainable Hydropower Use
Why this criterion? Hydropower can negatively impact nature by altering river ecosystems, disrupting fish migration, and affecting water quality. Dams can change natural water flow, leading to habitat loss for aquatic and terrestrial species. They can also trap sediment, which is essential for maintaining downstream ecosystems. Thieme (2021) found that if all planned hydropower dams would complete construction, this would result in the loss of 260,000 kilometers of free-flowing rivers globally.
Why this threshold? Opperman (2019) show that a low level of hydropower expansion of no more than 1500 GW hydropower globally combined with strategic planning of the siting of new hydropower could reduce impacts on free-flowing rivers by 90%.
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Sources
| Identifier | Bibliographic information | Links |
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M.L. Thieme, D. Tickner, G. Grill, J.P. Carvallo, M. Goichot, J. Hartmann, J. Higgins, B. Lehner, M. Mulligan, C. Nilsson, K. Tockner, C. Zarfl, and J. Opperman. Navigating trade-offs between dams and river conservation. Global Sustainability, 2021. | DOI |
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Jeff Opperman, Jens Hartmann, Michael Lambrides, Juan Pablo Carvallo, Emily Chapin, Sharon Baruch-Mordo, Brian Eyler, Marc Goichot, Julien Harou, Joanna Hepp, Daniel Kammen, Joseph Kiesecker, Amy Newsock, Rafael Schmitt, Michele Thieme, Alex Wang, Courtney Weatherby, and Christiane Weber. Connected and Flowing: A Renewable Future for Rivers, Climate, and People. 2019. | URL |