Reducing adverse impacts of Amazon hydropower expansion

作者：Alexander S. Flecker, Qinru Shi, Rafael M. Almeida, Héctor Angarita, Jonathan M. Gomes-Selman, Roosevelt García‐Villacorta, Suresh A. Sethi, Steven A. Thomas, N. LeRoy Poff, Bruce R. Forsberg, Sebastián Heilpern, Stephen K. Hamilton, Jorge D. Abad, Elizabeth P. Anderson, Nathan Barros, Isabel Carolina Bernal, Richard Bernstein, Carlos Cañas, Olivier Dangles, Andrea C. Encalada, Ayan Santos Fleischmann, Michael Goulding, Jonathan Higgins, Céline Jezequel, Erin I. Larson, Peter B. McIntyre, John M. Mélack, Mariana Montoya, Thierry Oberdorff, Rodrigo Cauduro Dias de Paiva, Guillaume Perez, Brendan Rappazzo, Scott Steinschneider, Sandra Torres‐Paguay, Mariana Varese, M. Todd Walter, Xiaojian Wu, Yexiang Xue, Xavier Zapata‐Ríos, Carla P. Gomes · 发表于：Science · 年份：2022 · DOI：10.1126/science.abj4017 · 被引用次数：179 · 研究领域：Hydropower, Displacement, Environmental Impact、Water-Energy-Food Nexus Studies、Water resources management and optimization

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.