Author: riverlab

Rivers carry not only water, but also sediment. Yet sediment has been largely neglected in many studies of river history, and in current management plans. Profs Giacomo Parrinello and Matt Kondolf review how sediment has been treated (or ignored) by scholars in this introduction to a special issue in the journal Water History.

Riverlab is supporting the ongoing effort to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, building on research conducted by Mark Tompkins and Matt Kondolf over a decade ago. An agreement among Tribes, NGOs, local stakeholders, the states of California and Oregon, and importantly, the owner of the dams, has paved the way for removing the dams starting in 2023, as reflected in this recent CBS News report. It will be the largest dam removal in the country and promises to benefit salmon runs in the river, which have been reduced by impacts of the dams and land use in the basin.

Tonle Sap Lake is unique in its ecological and cultural importance. In the rainy season, water flows upstream from the Mekong River to swell the lake to 4 times its dry-season extent, creating extensive shallow water habitat for fish. When the lake drains back to the Mekong through the Tonle Sap River, it creates one of the greatest fishing grounds of the world, providing protein to millions of people. Research by former Riverlab/Fulbright visiting scholar Chantha Oeurng and his student Ty Sok demonstrates evolving flow and sediment relations between the lake and the Mekong River. The just-published paper,  Assessment of Suspended Sediment Load Variability in the Tonle Sap and Lower Mekong Rivers, Cambodia, is available for free download until late May from Catena here.

Two Riverlab researchers (Rafael Schmitt and Matt Kondolf) and two Italian colleagues (Simone Bizzi and Andrea Castelletti) have been awarded the 2021 Aspen Institute Italia Award for their joint research on “Improved trade-offs of hydropower and sand connectivity by strategic dam planning in the Mekong” ^[1].  The scientists are working on this ongoing effort to reduce impacts of the global clean energy transition on rivers and livelihoods.

Building future green economy poses great economic and technical challenge for societies, in part because of the often-overlooked externalities of technology and infrastructure on people and the environment. In their research, the scientists used the example of hydropower development to demonstrate need and opportunity to resolve such conflicts through strategic spatial planning. Hydropower is a well-proven and cost-effective way to generate renewable energy. At the same time, dams can have catastrophic impacts on people’s livelihoods and the fundamental processes that underpin healthy rivers. Thus, there is great concern about the environmental impacts of future dams, mostly planned to energize socio-economic development in the global south.

The winning research demonstrated that strategic placement of dams, considering for the spatial heterogeneity of natural processes in rivers and the cumulative impacts of multiple dams, can greatly reduce dam impacts without compromising on energy generation and energy costs. That finding was derived by combining a novel computer model for evaluating large scale impacts of dams on rivers with state-of-the art tools for decision analysis. The study was based on the example of the Mekong River in South East Asia, where a massive hydropower development occurred in the recent past, and more development is foreseen in the near future. Results show that existing dams, exploiting around 50 % of the basin’s hydropower potential, have major impacts on the biophysical functioning of the studied rivers. The key finding of the study is that the same amount of hydropower could have been generated with much smaller impacts if dam sites would have been selected strategically such as to reduce their cumulative impacts.

While the results were derived for the Mekong River, the findings have broad implications for renewable water and energy systems world-wide. Globally, increasing conflicts between infrastructure and natural systems are inevitable: Other forms of renewable energy create environmental impacts, more water infrastructure will be required to meet domestic and agricultural water demands, and industrialized countries must soon review their aging infrastructure portfolios. In this context, strategic decision making, which balances economic and ecosystem needs is crucial for an ecologic transition to water and energy systems with minimal impacts on nature and maximal benefits for society.  

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[1]  The reasearch has been published by Nature Sustainability | VOL 1 | FEBRUARY 2018 | 96–104 |

Deliberate high-flow releases are increasingly made from dams to mimic effects of floods and interact with the channel to produce biophysical changes in channel characteristics, such as removing fine sediment from downstream aquatic habitats. These are a special case of environmental flows intended to mitigate geomorphic/ecological effects of dams, commonly termed flushing flows. In a new publication, Remi Loire and colleagues propose new terms for these high flow releases: morphogenic releases, or ecomorphogenic releases for flows intended specifically to improve aquatic and riparian habitats. The paper, published in Earth Science Reviews, reviews objectives of these flows, experiences gained from their implementation, and potential conflicts with environmental, socio-economic, and dam-operational issues. The paper is available until 21 February 2021 for free download here.

Loire, R, H Piégay, J-R Malavoi, GM Kondolf, and LA Bêche. From flushing flows to eco-geomorphic flow releases: evolving terminology, practice, and integration into regulated river management. Earth Science Reviews 213: 103475

Many cities worldwide now have available waterfront land, often in the city center, thanks to de-industrialization and concentration of navigation elsewhere. As cities seek to take advantage of this remarkable real estate, they may be prone to some classic ‘traps’ such as copying projects successful in another city but which fail in the new location due to differences in scale, topography, urban form, etc. In this recent publication, Pedro Pinto and Matt Kondolf present an idiosyncratic list of ‘wrongs’ that are evident in many such projects. The paper is freely available, via open access here.

Pinto, JP, and GM Kondolf. 2020. The fit of urban waterfront interventions: matters of size, money and function. Sustainability 12: 4079; doi:10.3390/su12104079

River restoration projects in North America that involve reconfiguration of stream channels are dominated by symmetrical, single-thread meandering channels.  Although the meander dimensions are commonly justified by relations between channel width and meander wavelength, the universal preference for single-thread meandering channels in restoration projects is rarely questioned.  The aesthetic appeal of s-shaped curves in art and landscape design may help explain the prevalence of this form in river restoration projects. Riverlab alumna Kristen Wilson (Nature Conservancy) gave 300 freshwater scientists attending her keynote talk 5 minutes to draw a restored stream.  She compiled the results to see what mental images these scientists had for restored channels. Most depicted single-thread meanders for their restored channel, although there were interesting variants.  See Kristen’s just-published paper here.