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Shives, Paul

Run-of-river hydroelectric schemes have grown rapidly in British Columbia since BC’s 2002 Energy Plan was released. These projects are often claimed to be one of the most environmentally friendly methods of electricity generation, in particular as a tool to combat climate change. However, the body of literature on the subject highlights that these facilities have the potential to have wide-ranging impacts on the environment. Changes to abiotic factors in the aquatic system brought about by these projects include increased temperatures, reductions of in-stream flows, increased fine sediment concentrations and rapid changes to discharge. These abiotic alterations lead to biotic impacts: namely, reducing the quantity and quality of available fish habitat (in particular to Salmonids) as well as reducing the amount of aquatic invertebrates, a primary food source for fish. Moreover, to have these projects operational, they require dozens of kilometers of linear infrastructure, most notably rehabilitated resource roads and newly constructed transmission line networks to connect to BC Hydro’s grid. The upshot of my research indicates that run-of-river projects are not as environmentally benign as some would have the public believe, and it is uncertain whether their climate change mitigations trump their immediate aquatic and terrestrial impacts.

Text

University of British Columbia. FRST 497

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0075590

Forestry, Faculty of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/