TY - JOUR
T1 - Energy crisis in Brazil: Impact of hydropower reservoir level on the river flow
AU - Hunt, Julian David
AU - Nascimento, Andreas
AU - Caten, Carla Schwengber ten
AU - Tomé, Fernanda Munari Caputo
AU - Schneider, Paulo Smith
AU - Thomazoni, André Luis Ribeiro
AU - Castro, Nivalde José de
AU - Brandão, Roberto
AU - Freitas, Marcos Aurélio Vasconcelos de
AU - Martini, José Sidnei Colombo
AU - Ramos, Dorel Soares
AU - Senne, Rodrigo
N1 - Generated from Scopus record by KAUST IRTS on 2023-09-23
PY - 2022/1/15
Y1 - 2022/1/15
N2 - Water management strategies can have considerable impacts on the regional climate and hydrology. It is usually the case that the construction and operation of hydropower reduce the river flow downstream due to the increase in evaporation. However, this paper shows that in humid regions, such as in Brazil, the hydropower storage reservoirs contribute to increase the flow of the river. This observation has been tested with historical reservoir levels and river flow data from several dams in Brazil. It was found that the operation of reservoirs in Brazil has a considerable impact on its river flows. The higher the storage level at the beginning of the humid period, the higher the river flow during the wet period. The paper proposes strategies to allow the reservoirs to fill up and to maintain the reservoirs filled in the future, with the intention of increasing hydropower generation and reducing the intermittency of other renewable energy sources.
AB - Water management strategies can have considerable impacts on the regional climate and hydrology. It is usually the case that the construction and operation of hydropower reduce the river flow downstream due to the increase in evaporation. However, this paper shows that in humid regions, such as in Brazil, the hydropower storage reservoirs contribute to increase the flow of the river. This observation has been tested with historical reservoir levels and river flow data from several dams in Brazil. It was found that the operation of reservoirs in Brazil has a considerable impact on its river flows. The higher the storage level at the beginning of the humid period, the higher the river flow during the wet period. The paper proposes strategies to allow the reservoirs to fill up and to maintain the reservoirs filled in the future, with the intention of increasing hydropower generation and reducing the intermittency of other renewable energy sources.
UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0360544221021757
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85115162499&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.energy.2021.121927
DO - 10.1016/j.energy.2021.121927
M3 - Article
SN - 0360-5442
VL - 239
JO - Energy
JF - Energy
ER -
