IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enscpo/v61y2016icp87-96.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A synthesis of environmental and recreational mitigation requirements at hydropower projects in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Schramm, Michael P.
  • Bevelhimer, Mark S.
  • DeRolph, Chris R.

Abstract

Environmental mitigation plays an important role in the environmentally sustainable development of hydropower resources. However, comprehensive data on mitigation required by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) at United States (US) hydropower projects is lacking. Therefore, our objective was to create a comprehensive database of mitigation required at non-federal hydropower projects and provide a synthesis of available mitigation data. Mitigation data was collated for over 300 plants licensed or relicensed from 1998 through 2013. We observed that the majority of FERC mitigation requirements deal with either hydrologic flows or recreation and that hydropower plants in the Pacific Northwest had the highest number of requirements. Our data indicate opportunities exist to further explore hydropower mitigation in the areas of environmental flows, fish passage, and water quality. Connecting these data with ecological outcomes, actual flow data, and larger landscape level information will be necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation and ultimately inform regulators, managers, and planners.

Suggested Citation

  • Schramm, Michael P. & Bevelhimer, Mark S. & DeRolph, Chris R., 2016. "A synthesis of environmental and recreational mitigation requirements at hydropower projects in the United States," Environmental Science & Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 87-96.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enscpo:v:61:y:2016:i:c:p:87-96
    DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2016.03.019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901116300752
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.envsci.2016.03.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Garrett, Kayla P. & McManamay, Ryan A. & Witt, Adam, 2023. "Harnessing the power of environmental flows: Sustaining river ecosystem integrity while increasing energy potential at hydropower dams," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    2. Graça Gomes, J. & Xu, H.J. & Yang, Q. & Zhao, C.Y., 2021. "An optimization study on a typical renewable microgrid energy system with energy storage," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    3. Philipp Emanuel Hirsch & Moritz Schillinger & Katharina Appoloni & Patricia Burkhardt-Holm & Hannes Weigt, 2016. "Integrating Economic and Ecological Benchmarking for a Sustainable Development of Hydropower," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-20, August.
    4. Parish, Esther S. & Pracheil, Brenda M. & McManamay, Ryan A. & Curd, Shelaine L. & DeRolph, Christopher R. & Smith, Brennan T., 2019. "Review of environmental metrics used across multiple sectors and geographies to evaluate the effects of hydropower development," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(C), pages 101-118.
    5. Marianna Rotilio & Chiara Marchionni & Pierluigi De Berardinis, 2017. "The Small-Scale Hydropower Plants in Sites of Environmental Value: An Italian Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-15, November.
    6. Zafar Alam & Yoshinobu Watanabe & Shazia Hanif & Tatsuro Sato & Tokihiko Fujimoto, 2021. "Community-Based Business on Small Hydropower (SHP) in Rural Japan: A Case Study on a Community Owned SHP Model of Ohito Agricultural Cooperative," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-14, June.
    7. Oladosu, Gbadebo A. & Werble, Joseph & Tingen, William & Witt, Adam & Mobley, Miles & O'Connor, Patrick, 2021. "Costs of mitigating the environmental impacts of hydropower projects in the United States," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    8. Zafar Alam & Yoshinobu Watanabe & Shazia Hanif & Tatsuro Sato & Tokihiko Fujimoto, 2021. "Social Enterprise in Small Hydropower (SHP) Owned by a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) between a Food Cooperative and a Social Venture Company; a Case Study of the 20 kW Shiraito (Step3) SHP in It," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-10, October.
    9. Paweł Tomczyk & Mirosław Wiatkowski, 2021. "The Effects of Hydropower Plants on the Physicochemical Parameters of the Bystrzyca River in Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-29, April.
    10. Terese E. Venus & Nicole Smialek & Joachim Pander & Atle Harby & Juergen Geist, 2020. "Evaluating Cost Trade-Offs between Hydropower and Fish Passage Mitigation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-30, October.
    11. Matthew S. P. Aldrovandi & Esther S. Parish & Brenda M. Pracheil, 2021. "Understanding the Environmental Study Life Cycle in the United States Hydropower Licensing and Federal Authorization Process," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-17, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enscpo:v:61:y:2016:i:c:p:87-96. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/environmental-science-and-policy/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.