Estuaries, in particular freshwater estuaries, provide valuable economic, social, and ecological services, but their ecosystems are often heavily stressed. Located in the Laurentian Great Lakes basin, Green Bay is a large freshwater estuary and a prominent example of a degraded ecosystem due to intensive human interventions and rapid development. Excessive amounts of contaminants and nutrients were discharged to the bay by inflowing tributaries for almost half a century, while in contrast Green Bay's seasonal‐, morphological‐, and physically‐restricted mixing is unable to export a significant portion of those materials out of the bay, that is, Green Bay behaves as an efficient retention basin for the Lake Michigan. Consequently, several environmental and public health‐related issues have risen in Green Bay and turned the lower bay into an area of environmental concern since the 1980s. To address these challenges, restoration programs were developed, including the development of monitoring programs, scientific research, and remedial action plans. There is a consensus that accelerated loading rates of contaminated and nutrient‐rich sediments are a major driver of the environmental crisis in the bay, yet the fate and transport patterns of Green Bay sediments are not clearly understood. While field observations in Green Bay are season‐limited and costly, advanced computing techniques provided opportunities to refine our understanding of sediment dynamics in this estuarine system. This review of existing knowledge on Green Bay sediment processes can help to better understand the interplay between sediments, and physical/biogeochemical activities in estuarine systems and contributes conceptually to the restoration of degraded aquatic ecosystems.
{"title":"Interactions between sediment processes and ecosystem responses in the Green Bay of Lake Michigan","authors":"B. Khazaei, H. Bravo, S. A. Hamidi","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1668","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1668","url":null,"abstract":"Estuaries, in particular freshwater estuaries, provide valuable economic, social, and ecological services, but their ecosystems are often heavily stressed. Located in the Laurentian Great Lakes basin, Green Bay is a large freshwater estuary and a prominent example of a degraded ecosystem due to intensive human interventions and rapid development. Excessive amounts of contaminants and nutrients were discharged to the bay by inflowing tributaries for almost half a century, while in contrast Green Bay's seasonal‐, morphological‐, and physically‐restricted mixing is unable to export a significant portion of those materials out of the bay, that is, Green Bay behaves as an efficient retention basin for the Lake Michigan. Consequently, several environmental and public health‐related issues have risen in Green Bay and turned the lower bay into an area of environmental concern since the 1980s. To address these challenges, restoration programs were developed, including the development of monitoring programs, scientific research, and remedial action plans. There is a consensus that accelerated loading rates of contaminated and nutrient‐rich sediments are a major driver of the environmental crisis in the bay, yet the fate and transport patterns of Green Bay sediments are not clearly understood. While field observations in Green Bay are season‐limited and costly, advanced computing techniques provided opportunities to refine our understanding of sediment dynamics in this estuarine system. This review of existing knowledge on Green Bay sediment processes can help to better understand the interplay between sediments, and physical/biogeochemical activities in estuarine systems and contributes conceptually to the restoration of degraded aquatic ecosystems.","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50990888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Progress toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6, clean water and sanitation for all, is behind schedule and faces substantial financial challenges. Rigorous water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions have underperformed, casting doubt on their efficacy and potentially undermining confidence in WASH funding and investments. But these interventions have leaned on a narrow set of WASH indicators—linear growth and diarrhea—that reflect a 20th‐century prioritization of microbiological water quality as the most important measurement of WASH intervention success. Even when water is microbiologically safe, hundreds of millions of people face harassment, assault, injury, poisoning, anxiety, exhaustion, depression, social exclusion, discrimination, subjugation, hunger, debt, or work, school, or family care absenteeism when retrieving or consuming household water. Measures of WASH intervention success should incorporate these impacts to reinforce the WASH value proposition. We present a way forward for implementing a monitoring and evaluation paradigm shift that can help achieve transformative WASH.
{"title":"Measuring transformative WASH: A new paradigm for evaluating water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions","authors":"Justin Stoler, Danice B. Guzmán, E. Adams","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1674","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1674","url":null,"abstract":"Progress toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6, clean water and sanitation for all, is behind schedule and faces substantial financial challenges. Rigorous water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions have underperformed, casting doubt on their efficacy and potentially undermining confidence in WASH funding and investments. But these interventions have leaned on a narrow set of WASH indicators—linear growth and diarrhea—that reflect a 20th‐century prioritization of microbiological water quality as the most important measurement of WASH intervention success. Even when water is microbiologically safe, hundreds of millions of people face harassment, assault, injury, poisoning, anxiety, exhaustion, depression, social exclusion, discrimination, subjugation, hunger, debt, or work, school, or family care absenteeism when retrieving or consuming household water. Measures of WASH intervention success should incorporate these impacts to reinforce the WASH value proposition. We present a way forward for implementing a monitoring and evaluation paradigm shift that can help achieve transformative WASH.","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50990995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The study of groundwater–surface water interaction has attracted growing interest among researchers in recent years due to its wide range of implications from the perspectives of water management, ecology and contamination. Many of the studies shed light on conditions on a local scale only, without exploring a regional angle. To provide a broad and historical overview of groundwater–surface water interaction, a review of research carried out in Denmark was undertaken due to the high density of studies conducted in the country. The extent to which this topic has been investigated is related to Denmark's physiography and climate, the presence of numerous streams and lakes combined with shallow groundwater, and historical, funding, and administrative decisions. Study topics comprise groundwater detection techniques, numerical modeling, and contaminant issues including nutrients, ranging from point studies all the way to studies at national scale. The increase in studies in recent decades corresponds with the need to maintain the good status of groundwater‐dependent ecosystems and protect groundwater resources. This review of three decades of research revealed that problems such as the difference in scales between numerical models and field observations, interdisciplinary research integrating hydrological and biological methods, and the effect of local processes in regional systems remain persistent challenges. Technical progress in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, distributed temperature sensing, and new cost‐effective methods for detecting groundwater discharge as well as the increasing computing capacity of numerical models emerge as opportunities for dealing with complex natural systems that are subject to modifications in future triggered by climate change.
{"title":"Groundwater–surface water interaction in Denmark","authors":"C. Duque, B. Nilsson, P. Engesgaard","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1664","url":null,"abstract":"The study of groundwater–surface water interaction has attracted growing interest among researchers in recent years due to its wide range of implications from the perspectives of water management, ecology and contamination. Many of the studies shed light on conditions on a local scale only, without exploring a regional angle. To provide a broad and historical overview of groundwater–surface water interaction, a review of research carried out in Denmark was undertaken due to the high density of studies conducted in the country. The extent to which this topic has been investigated is related to Denmark's physiography and climate, the presence of numerous streams and lakes combined with shallow groundwater, and historical, funding, and administrative decisions. Study topics comprise groundwater detection techniques, numerical modeling, and contaminant issues including nutrients, ranging from point studies all the way to studies at national scale. The increase in studies in recent decades corresponds with the need to maintain the good status of groundwater‐dependent ecosystems and protect groundwater resources. This review of three decades of research revealed that problems such as the difference in scales between numerical models and field observations, interdisciplinary research integrating hydrological and biological methods, and the effect of local processes in regional systems remain persistent challenges. Technical progress in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, distributed temperature sensing, and new cost‐effective methods for detecting groundwater discharge as well as the increasing computing capacity of numerical models emerge as opportunities for dealing with complex natural systems that are subject to modifications in future triggered by climate change.","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50990881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Effective water pipeline leak detection and localization can help water practitioners save water losses and reduce pipe rehabilitation budgets. Different sensing technologies can provide essential data aiding model development for predicting future leaks in the water distribution networks. Solutions for applying different sensing technologies to real water distribution networks are being developed for real‐time data collection, precise leak localization, reducing false alarms, and continuous pipeline monitoring. Experiments of different scales and specifications have been conducted to test the application and effectiveness of sensing technologies for leak diagnosis in water pipelines. Quality data collection is especially crucial for the successful implementation of these experiments. However, practitioners need help designing effective leak detection and localization experiments, wasting time, and resources. There needs to be a greater understanding of the design parameters for more accurate testing, such as sensor selection, sensor placement, ambient noise sources, and system operations. The current study, therefore, delineates design parameters for design leak diagnosis experiments for lab, testbed, and real networks. For application in real water networks, expert opinion is used to help identify the benefits and limitations and the implementation issues of available sensing technologies. An example experiment design using multi‐sensing technologies for smart leak diagnostics in Hong Kong is also presented. The study can guide water practitioners and researchers to design a multi‐sensing leak diagnostic experiments enabling a smart and sustainable utility management. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Methods Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water Science of Water > Water Extremes
{"title":"State‐of‐the‐art review of leak diagnostic experiments: Toward a smart water network","authors":"Beenish Bakhtawar, Tarek Zayed","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1667","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1667","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Effective water pipeline leak detection and localization can help water practitioners save water losses and reduce pipe rehabilitation budgets. Different sensing technologies can provide essential data aiding model development for predicting future leaks in the water distribution networks. Solutions for applying different sensing technologies to real water distribution networks are being developed for real‐time data collection, precise leak localization, reducing false alarms, and continuous pipeline monitoring. Experiments of different scales and specifications have been conducted to test the application and effectiveness of sensing technologies for leak diagnosis in water pipelines. Quality data collection is especially crucial for the successful implementation of these experiments. However, practitioners need help designing effective leak detection and localization experiments, wasting time, and resources. There needs to be a greater understanding of the design parameters for more accurate testing, such as sensor selection, sensor placement, ambient noise sources, and system operations. The current study, therefore, delineates design parameters for design leak diagnosis experiments for lab, testbed, and real networks. For application in real water networks, expert opinion is used to help identify the benefits and limitations and the implementation issues of available sensing technologies. An example experiment design using multi‐sensing technologies for smart leak diagnostics in Hong Kong is also presented. The study can guide water practitioners and researchers to design a multi‐sensing leak diagnostic experiments enabling a smart and sustainable utility management. This article is categorized under: Engineering Water > Methods Engineering Water > Sustainable Engineering of Water Science of Water > Water Extremes","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135543192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The transboundary Mekong River spans China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and provides critical ecosystem services that support millions of people across the river basin. However, the exploitation of its water resources for state‐led development, especially in the realm of hydropower development, not only threatens the livelihoods and food security of communities across the river basin, but also reveal the challenges of governing the Mekong River as a transboundary commons. In focusing on how environmental injustice is produced through hydropower development and the power dynamics within hybrid governance arrangements in the Mekong River Basin, this paper seeks to examine how a grounded perspective of environmental justice may be understood in this context by linkages between the principles of environmental justice and the Mekong literature in three ways. First, the production of, and challenges against distributive injustice in the Mekong River Basin must engage with a strong tradition of scalar analysis in the field of transboundary water governance, particularly in understanding how a politics of scale underlies contestations around the Mekong River. Second, the principle of justice as recognition can be situated within a body of literature that interrogates the politics of knowledge that runs through Mekong water governance, although the co‐production of knowledge types must be acknowledged. Finally, a recent body of literature questioning the legality of dam‐building and public participation around Mekong hydropower dams are closely tied to issues of procedural justice, and reveal the importance of recognizing plurality in ideas around transparency and accountability.
{"title":"Hybrid governance, environmental justice, and hydropower development in the Mekong transboundary commons","authors":"Ming Li Yong","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1665","url":null,"abstract":"The transboundary Mekong River spans China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and provides critical ecosystem services that support millions of people across the river basin. However, the exploitation of its water resources for state‐led development, especially in the realm of hydropower development, not only threatens the livelihoods and food security of communities across the river basin, but also reveal the challenges of governing the Mekong River as a transboundary commons. In focusing on how environmental injustice is produced through hydropower development and the power dynamics within hybrid governance arrangements in the Mekong River Basin, this paper seeks to examine how a grounded perspective of environmental justice may be understood in this context by linkages between the principles of environmental justice and the Mekong literature in three ways. First, the production of, and challenges against distributive injustice in the Mekong River Basin must engage with a strong tradition of scalar analysis in the field of transboundary water governance, particularly in understanding how a politics of scale underlies contestations around the Mekong River. Second, the principle of justice as recognition can be situated within a body of literature that interrogates the politics of knowledge that runs through Mekong water governance, although the co‐production of knowledge types must be acknowledged. Finally, a recent body of literature questioning the legality of dam‐building and public participation around Mekong hydropower dams are closely tied to issues of procedural justice, and reveal the importance of recognizing plurality in ideas around transparency and accountability.","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50990883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Governments are increasingly faced with climate change realities and have also committed themselves to international agreements with objectives to tackle long‐term problems such as becoming climate neutral by 2050. Governments, therefore, will need to carefully consider how to contribute to combatting climate change, when investing in their water infrastructure that is reaching an end‐of‐lifetime due to technical aging or changing functional requirements. Such investments offer crucial windows of opportunity to create more resilient water systems, because large budgets are involved and lifespans of infrastructure are long and co‐determine possible futures. Based on a literature review, this article develops key ways of how infrastructure operators could adopt a long‐term perspective and choose water management strategies that increase absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities. With these perspectives and strategies, this article sets out a basis to help governments prepare for the future when they invest in water infrastructure. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Engineering Water > Planning Water
{"title":"Deciding for resilience: Utilizing water infrastructure investments to prepare for the future","authors":"Wieke Pot","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1661","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Governments are increasingly faced with climate change realities and have also committed themselves to international agreements with objectives to tackle long‐term problems such as becoming climate neutral by 2050. Governments, therefore, will need to carefully consider how to contribute to combatting climate change, when investing in their water infrastructure that is reaching an end‐of‐lifetime due to technical aging or changing functional requirements. Such investments offer crucial windows of opportunity to create more resilient water systems, because large budgets are involved and lifespans of infrastructure are long and co‐determine possible futures. Based on a literature review, this article develops key ways of how infrastructure operators could adopt a long‐term perspective and choose water management strategies that increase absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities. With these perspectives and strategies, this article sets out a basis to help governments prepare for the future when they invest in water infrastructure. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Engineering Water > Planning Water","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135792680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Groundwater modeling of the Silala basin and impacts of channelization","authors":"Adam Taylor, D. Peach","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1662","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1662","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49641251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Environmental change is growingly reported as an important driver of human migration. Among all environmental variables, water crises are the most critical factors. To date, patterns of interconnections between changes in water and migration are not yet clearly understood. Here, we explore these patterns through a systematic review that combined a quantitative text‐mining approach with qualitative thematic analysis. Our results generally concur with those of previous studies, which found that water‐driven migration usually occurs internally and that the population in low‐ and middle‐income countries and in dry regions are the most vulnerable and more likely to migrate or be displaced in the face of water‐related events. However, our causal network analysis highlights that water is not the only reason for migration: Its related problems could be major triggers driving people‐at‐risk to leave their original place. Based on observed evidence, water‐driven migration can be generally divided into four patterns: variability in water quantity, damaging water hazards and extremes, physical disturbances to water systems, and water pollution. These patterns are not independent but interconnected through multifaceted factors affecting people's livelihoods and their decisions to migrate. Understanding water‐migration dynamics requires systematic thinking of the interconnections between changes in water and in migration patterns, the investigation of interactions between fast and slow water variables and their dynamic link to other socioeconomic variables, an integrated water‐migration database to help identify early‐warning signals of damaging water hazards that may result in undesirable migration, and targeted water policies that focus on building the resilience of vulnerable regions and population to climate change.
{"title":"Global patterns of water‐driven human migration","authors":"Li Xu, J. Famiglietti","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1647","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1647","url":null,"abstract":"Environmental change is growingly reported as an important driver of human migration. Among all environmental variables, water crises are the most critical factors. To date, patterns of interconnections between changes in water and migration are not yet clearly understood. Here, we explore these patterns through a systematic review that combined a quantitative text‐mining approach with qualitative thematic analysis. Our results generally concur with those of previous studies, which found that water‐driven migration usually occurs internally and that the population in low‐ and middle‐income countries and in dry regions are the most vulnerable and more likely to migrate or be displaced in the face of water‐related events. However, our causal network analysis highlights that water is not the only reason for migration: Its related problems could be major triggers driving people‐at‐risk to leave their original place. Based on observed evidence, water‐driven migration can be generally divided into four patterns: variability in water quantity, damaging water hazards and extremes, physical disturbances to water systems, and water pollution. These patterns are not independent but interconnected through multifaceted factors affecting people's livelihoods and their decisions to migrate. Understanding water‐migration dynamics requires systematic thinking of the interconnections between changes in water and in migration patterns, the investigation of interactions between fast and slow water variables and their dynamic link to other socioeconomic variables, an integrated water‐migration database to help identify early‐warning signals of damaging water hazards that may result in undesirable migration, and targeted water policies that focus on building the resilience of vulnerable regions and population to climate change.","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75343392","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding the Silala River—Scientific insights from the dispute over the status and use of the waters of the Silala (Chile v. Bolivia)","authors":"H. Wheater, D. Peach, F. Suárez, J. Muñoz","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1663","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45277086","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent years scholars have advanced our understanding of the biophysical, socioeconomic, and geopolitical impacts of dams and hydropower infrastructure around the globe. Databases and maps have emerged that allow global comparisons between countries and river basins. However, reliable and freely available data do not exist for many regions. As a result, data limitations and quality issues persist, which limit the quality of analyses based on these datasets. This is particularly true in regions where hydropower infrastructure development is proceeding most rapidly, including South Asia's Third Pole region. We identify and describe serious quantitative and qualitative data dilemmas of existing databases. We divide these into location, size, type, and status. At the most basic level, these dilemmas mean that incorrect location and, more importantly, massive underrepresentation of existing and future projects generates incorrect conclusions. That underrepresentation results largely from uncritically equating absence of data with absence of infrastructure. We also argue that project function should be more reliably recorded (for both dams and hydropower projects), that project status should be clear (many existing projects are still passed off as future), and that smaller projects should be systematically recorded (their cumulative importance is often underestimated). These four dilemmas all have important implications for analyses based on existing datasets. The World Index of Hydropower, Dams, and Reservoirs (WIHDR) described here represents a major advance on all four points. For the first time, 652 existing hydropower plants (277 large and 375 small), 162 under construction, and 720 planned hydropower plants have been georeferenced and systematically recorded for the Indus‐Ganga‐Brahmaputra region.
{"title":"Hydropower development in South Asia: Data challenges, new approaches, and implications for decision‐making","authors":"T. Hennig, Tyler Harlan, B. Tilt, D. Magee","doi":"10.1002/wat2.1654","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1654","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years scholars have advanced our understanding of the biophysical, socioeconomic, and geopolitical impacts of dams and hydropower infrastructure around the globe. Databases and maps have emerged that allow global comparisons between countries and river basins. However, reliable and freely available data do not exist for many regions. As a result, data limitations and quality issues persist, which limit the quality of analyses based on these datasets. This is particularly true in regions where hydropower infrastructure development is proceeding most rapidly, including South Asia's Third Pole region. We identify and describe serious quantitative and qualitative data dilemmas of existing databases. We divide these into location, size, type, and status. At the most basic level, these dilemmas mean that incorrect location and, more importantly, massive underrepresentation of existing and future projects generates incorrect conclusions. That underrepresentation results largely from uncritically equating absence of data with absence of infrastructure. We also argue that project function should be more reliably recorded (for both dams and hydropower projects), that project status should be clear (many existing projects are still passed off as future), and that smaller projects should be systematically recorded (their cumulative importance is often underestimated). These four dilemmas all have important implications for analyses based on existing datasets. The World Index of Hydropower, Dams, and Reservoirs (WIHDR) described here represents a major advance on all four points. For the first time, 652 existing hydropower plants (277 large and 375 small), 162 under construction, and 720 planned hydropower plants have been georeferenced and systematically recorded for the Indus‐Ganga‐Brahmaputra region.","PeriodicalId":23774,"journal":{"name":"Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.2,"publicationDate":"2023-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85366236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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