session3.3 cirf bruno boz

River restoration and sustainable hydropower: Multi Criteria Analysis as a tool to clarify impacts and reduce water use conflicts Project final meeting

Aosta – Italy, 24th May 2012 Bruno Boz CIRF – Italian Center for River Restoration Technical Secretariat

SHARE, Final meeting – Aosta – Italy, 24th May 2012

CIRF - Italian Center for River Restoration


• OUR GOALS

► Increase knowledge on the status of our rivers and on pressure factors

►Prevent short-sighted policies

►Promote river restoration

www.cirf.org

River restoration


►River restoration refers to a large variety of ecological, physical, spatial and management measures and practices. These are aimed at restoring the natural state and functioning of the river system in support of biodiversity, recreation, flood safety and landscape development.

RF WFD ?

RBMPs River Restoration measures

River restoration and hydropower: The use of MCA


• The development of RR practices need a participatory approach and need instruments able to demonstrate their effects at different levels

>> MCA

ECOLOGICAL

STATUS ECONOMY LANDSCAPE TOURISM FLOOD RISK

Hydropower and river ecological status


► “hydropower generation can be considered to be the main reason for water abstraction (…).These results in the fact that a significant share of river stretches fails to meet the good ecological status”

Water and water management issues: Report on the State of the Alps, 2009

► In the 1st implementation report of the WFD, hydropower has been identified as one of the main drivers to hydro-morphological alterations, loss of connectivity and to significant adverse effects on the ability of survival of fish populations

COM (2007) 128 final. Commission Staff Working Document accompanying to the Communication from the EC to the European Parliament and the Council. 'Towards Sustainable Water Management in the European Union'. First stage in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC.

► Recent data from all EU Member States on the designation of heavily modified water bodies (HMWB) showed that water storage for hydropower generation is the third most common water use for designating HMWB (following water regulation and flood protection).

Kampa, E. & C. Laaser (2009). Updated Discussion Paper. Common Implementation Strategy Workshop Heavily Modified Water Bodies. Brussels, 12-13 March 2009.

River restoration and hydropower: where to act?


►General rules to manage the existing plants (national, regional or at basin scale)

►Rules and plans to regulate the development of new plants (national, regional or at basin scale)

►Management and mitigation/compensation measures (for single or connected system of HPPs, at local scale)

Rules for the existing plants


• Application of the «Minimum ecological flow »

►Different methods to define it, but in general very different from the natural flow

►Not directly related (cause – effect) with the WFD objectives (EQS status)

►Big lacks in term of discharge data availability

►Different ways and times to apply the rules and possibility to derogate

►Lack of control

Example: lack of control


MINIMUM

ECOLOGICAL FLOW

??

Rules for the existing plants

• Bedload and fine sediments management – Sediment traps management, flushing operations and emergency manoeuvres

►Alteration of bedload transport, which in turn alters the

planoaltimetric evolution of the streambed and its major morphological characteristics

► Fine sediments: peaks in turbidity in the stream, discharge peaks associated to the fast opening of the sluice gates, toxicity.

► The theme is actual and the results of some recent research projects are now available.

► Sluicing must be planned and regulated following the Decree 30/06/2004: requires defining a specific protocol and a reservoir management plan

►NOT only avoid impacts, but also IMPROVE the actual situation: in particular restoring the bedload transport downstream

Examples: impact due to fine sediments


Drivers to restoration


• Renewal of hydroelectric concessions

• New methods to define royalties (IDEA)

• Volunteer green labelling (CH2OICE)

Development of new plants


• Critical issues: - HIGH number of new plants (and new river stretches exploited) but

LOW relative contribute to total production

Plants with a capacity of less than 1 MW constitute around 75% of all HP plants within the Alpine area but contribute less than 5% to the total electricity production

Data from:



• Critical issues: Still significant lacks in term of knowledge of the real ecological

status of waterbodies >> precautionary approach

Data from:



• Critical issues: - It is estimated that about 90% of alpine rivers aren’t in their

natural state anymore: the residual natural capital under pressure is very high!

- Risk of failing Water Framework Directive objectives is actually high (in Alpine regions under-estimated?)

Data from:



• Critical issues The impact is not related with the size of the plant; in some

context a small plant could create a big impact!

The size of the project is not the relevant criteria to trigger Article 4.7. The relevant approach is to assess if a given project will result in deterioration of the status of a water body. Thus, projects of any size may fall under article 4.7.

(Key recommendations from 2010 Water Directors Statement )

#



• We are strongly supporting (green certificates) these solutions

• The requirements of Article 4.7 (exceptionally allows the deterioration of water status or failure to achieve good water status provided certain strict conditions are satisfied) of WFD are in general not explicitly considered

• With some exceptions, pre-planning mechanisms allocating “no-go” areas for new hydro-power projects have not still been adopted

• On the contrary some mechanisms to simplify the procedures to obtain the concessions have been adopted

From: Alpine Convention COMMON GUIDELINES

FOR THE USE OF SMALL HYDROPOWER

IN THE ALPINE REGION

Mitigation/compensation measures


• Pressures factors:

From CH2OICE project



• Environmental criteria:

From CH2OICE project



• Cause-effect relationships

PRESSURES FACTORS

EN

VIR

ON

ME

NTA

L C

RIT

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IA



• Mitigation measures to reduce the impact due to structures: fish passes, bypass channels, installation of screens and deterrents, “fish friendly” turbines, correct location of the electric poles and the route of the power lines etc..



• Mitigation measures to reduce the impact due to release flow alterations (included hydropeaking): to recreate a hydrograph as close as possible to the natural one, create refuge habitats through morphological diversification,

FOR HYDROPEAKING: reduce the difference between maximum and minimum flows and extend the transition time between these two conditions, releases of discharges into retention reservoirs ..



• Mitigation and compensation measures to reduce the impact due to bedload and fine sediments management: restoring the bedload transport downstream of the dam, increase of sediment input from the slopes or from tributaries through the removal of bank protections, proper timing, if necessary use mechanical digging of sediment instead than fluitation..



• To reduce significantly the impact is possible but in term of costs each HPP and water body is a different story…

• The adoption of mitigation and compensation measures is not sufficient to avoid the adoption of pre-planning mechanisms allocating “no-go” areas (cumulative impact, typologies of water bodies disappearing, necessity to preserve some pristine river stretches..)

River restoration and hydropower: The use of MCA


Typical problems to solve: Built/maintain or not new HPPs? Which is the best location of new HPPs? How to manage the release flow? How to manage the bedload and fine sediments? To release or not some mitigation actions (fish passes, bypass channel…)?

MCA

MCA: examples National Park of Dolomiti Bellunesi


Alternatives: different way to manage the release flows

Twole B DEI-POLIMI; DIIAR-POLIMI; DEPAAA-UNIMI; CIRF Adda sub-lacuale


Actions considered to built the alternatives: - different way to manage the release flows from the lake and other diversions

- water quality improvement (different scenarios)

DEFINITION OF CAUSE-EFFECT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CONSIDERED ACTIONS AND RIVER ECOLOGICAL STATUS (WFD)

Conclusions


MCA: - the effects of each alternative and all the processes are transparent - useful to reduce conflicts and to support negotiation - it’s an instrument very effective to communicate - if cause-effect relationships are defined for different criteria, possibility to explore a wider range of solutions

- the choice of the indicators and of the analysis scale could be very critic and strongly influences the final results

- in the same time strong semplifications are required - also the definitions of the cause-effect relationship between pressure factors and quality elements is critic - to be effective a significant range of alternatives have to be

explored

River Restoration: Interest on SHARE project


- Attention to WFD (approach, choice of indicators…) - How to manage the bedload and fine sediments (effects on hydrological regime, the river continuity and the morphological condition) >> ARC ISÈRE - Built/maintain or not new HPPs, and best location? >> KOKRA, VAR, RIO CORDON) - Alternatives which consider together management and structural actions (KOKRA) - Biological elements: not only indicators based on community status, but also on habitat conditions (CASIMIR, IFIM..) - not indicators limited to the rivers channel but also riparian areas (CHISONE..)

THANK YOU for your attention


session3.3 cirf bruno boz

Technology

new river

water management issues

river system

sustainable water management

water storage

water abstraction

water regulation

significant share of