Search Results (2)

Management of hydroelectric dams is an aspect of sustainability that comes with resolving problems locally. The use of global indicators has not been a sustainable solution, thus the need for local indicators. Besides, current sustainability assessment tools lack the integration of climate, making assessments in a climate change context impossible. In this paper, we present management and sustainability assessment in a climate change context using sustainability indicators. We modeled a change in the climate using normal, moderate, and extreme climate conditions defined by Standardized Precipitation Indices (SPI) values. Out of 36 years analyzed, 24 years fall in the near-normal climate regime, and the remaining 12 years in moderate and extreme conditions, making near-normal climate regime the basis for managing the Taabo Dam. The impact of climate, techno-economic, and socio-environmental indicators on sustainability were investigated, and the results were analyzed according to scenarios. Climate adaptation shows higher sustainability indices than techno-economic and socio-environmental scenarios. Probability matrices show high and low values, respectively, for environmental and flooding indicators. Risk matrices, on the other hand, show that even with small probability values, risks still exist, and such small probabilities should not be taken as an absence of risk. The study reveals that sustainability can be improved by integrating climate into existing assessment methods. Full article

Sustainable hydroelectric projects are judged by their contribution to sustainable development, long-term viability, and ability to integrate sustainability goals. This paper analyses the Bui hydroelectric dam in Ghana vis-à-vis these expectations using sustainability indices. A multi-criteria analysis tool, APIS (Aggregated Preference Indices System), is used to build indices for Bui dam for four hydrologic seasons. An analysis of the indicators used revealed that environmental indicators are weightiest and economic indicators have the least weight. Comparative analysis of the Bui dam project shows 40%, 36%, 18%, and 6% priority for technical, economic, social, and environmental criteria, respectively, during its implementation stages. Per estimation of this work, the general sustainability index of the Bui dam is between 0.4 and 0.6 on a scale of 0 to 1. The impact of seasonal climate change will reduce the index to below 0.5 for three hydrologic seasons. The results show that Bui dam has an average but weak index of sustainability. Multi-criteria analysis offers quality assessment of energy projects, which is valuable for analyzing proposed or existing energy projects. This paper shows the possibility of using multi-criteria analysis approach to assess the sustainability of a hydroelectric dam. The approach offers a quantitative and qualitative assessment of a hydroelectric dam via a suitable choice of indicators. Full article