Assessment of environmental flows under limited data availability – Case study of the Acheloos River, Greece

A. Efstratiadis, A. Tegos, A. Varveris, and D. Koutsoyiannis, Assessment of environmental flows under limited data availability – Case study of the Acheloos River, Greece, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 59 (3-4), 731–750, doi:10.1080/02626667.2013.804625, 2014.

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[English]

The lower course of Acheloos River is an important hydrosystem of Greece, heavily modified by a cascade of four hydropower dams, which is now being extended by two more dams in the upper course. The design of the dams and hydropower facilities that are in operation has not considered any environmental criteria. However, in the last fifty years, numerous methodologies have been proposed to assess the negative impacts of such projects to both the abiotic and biotic environment, and to provide decision support towards establishing appropriate constraints on their operation, typically in terms of minimum flow requirements. In this study, seeking for a more environmental-friendly operation of the hydrosystem, we investigate the outflow policy from the most downstream dam, examining alternative environmental flow approaches. Accounting for data limitations, we recommend the Basic Flow Method, which is parsimonious and suitable for Mediterranean rivers, whose flows exhibit strong variability across seasons. We also show that the wetted perimeter – discharge method, which is an elementary hydraulic approach, provides consistent results, even without using any flow data. Finally, we examine the adaptation of the proposed flow policy (including artificial flooding) to the real-time hydropower generation schedule, and the management of the resulting conflicts.

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See also: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02626667.2013.804625

Our works referenced by this work:

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Our works that reference this work:

1. H. Tyralis, A. Tegos, A. Delichatsiou, N. Mamassis, and D. Koutsoyiannis, A perpetually interrupted interbasin water transfer as a modern Greek drama: Assessing the Acheloos to Pinios interbasin water transfer in the context of integrated water resources management, Open Water Journal, 4 (1), 113–128, 12, 2017.
2. A. Tegos, W. Schlüter, N. Gibbons, Y. Katselis, and A. Efstratiadis, Assessment of environmental flows from complexity to parsimony - Lessons from Lesotho, Water, 10 (10), 1293, doi:10.3390/w10101293, 2018.
3. A. Koskinas, A. Tegos, P. Tsira, P. Dimitriadis, T. Iliopoulou, P. Papanicolaou, D. Koutsoyiannis, and Τ. Williamson, Insights into the Oroville Dam 2017 spillway incident, Geosciences, 9 (37), doi:10.3390/geosciences9010037, 2019.
4. A. Koskinas, and A. Tegos, StEMORS: A stochastic eco-hydrological model for optimal reservoir sizing, Open Water Journal, 6 (1), 1, 2020.
5. N. Mamassis, A. Efstratiadis, P. Dimitriadis, T. Iliopoulou, R. Ioannidis, and D. Koutsoyiannis, Water and Energy, Handbook of Water Resources Management: Discourses, Concepts and Examples, edited by J.J. Bogardi, T. Tingsanchali, K.D.W. Nandalal, J. Gupta, L. Salamé, R.R.P. van Nooijen, A.G. Kolechkina, N. Kumar, and A. Bhaduri, Chapter 20, 617–655, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-60147-8_20, Springer Nature, Switzerland, 2021.
6. A. Efstratiadis, I. Tsoukalas, and D. Koutsoyiannis, Generalized storage-reliability-yield framework for hydroelectric reservoirs, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 66 (4), 580–599, doi:10.1080/02626667.2021.1886299, 2021.
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