Hydropower and AI: Emerging Technologies for Intelligent Hydropower Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Hydropower remains the world's largest sources of renewable electricity, playing a critical role in global energy security, flood control, and water resource management; however, the increasing complexity of hydropower systems is driven by aging infrastructure, climate variability, extreme hydrological events, and expanding grid demands which will need to be addressed with a new generation of intelligent, data driven tools to ensure safety, efficiency, and sustainability.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming how hydropower systems are monitored, operated and maintained; from deep learning-based hydrological forecasting and automated landslide detection to reinforcement learning for generation scheduling and AI driven structural health monitoring, these technologies offer unprecedented capabilities for addressing long standing challenges in the hydropower sector.

This Special Issue invites original research articles, comprehensive reviews, and technical communications that explore the intersection of AI and hydropower across a broad range of sub disciplines. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, applications of AI for the following purposes:

• Design optimization;
• Streamflow and flood forecasting;
• Slope deformation and landslide detection near hydropower reservoirs;
• Structural health and condition monitoring;
• Generation scheduling;
• Hydraulic turbine and generator fault diagnosis;
• Safety management;
• Environmental impact assessment;
• Design and operation of sensor networks for real-time monitoring.

We welcome contributions from researchers, engineers, and practitioners working at the frontier of hydropower technology and artificial intelligence. This Special Issue aims to build a comprehensive, interdisciplinary knowledge base that will guide the future of intelligent hydropower development worldwide.

Prof. Dr. Yong Liu
Prof. Dr. Juan I. Pérez-Díaz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Hydropower is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.