High Mountain Asia hydropower systems threatened by climate-driven landscape instability
Li, Dongfeng; Lu, Xixi; Walling, Desmond E.; Zhang, Ting; Steiner, Jakob F.; Wasson, Robert J.; Harrison, Stephan; Nepal, Santosh; Nie, Yong; Immerzeel, Walter W.; Shugar, Dan H.; Koppes, Michèle; Lane, Stuart; Zeng, Zhenzhong; Sun, Xiaofei; Yegorov, Alexandr; Bolch, Tobias
(2022) Nature Geoscience, volume 15, issue 7, pp. 520 - 530
(Article)
Abstract
Global warming-induced melting and thawing of the cryosphere are severely altering the volume and timing of water supplied from High Mountain Asia, adversely affecting downstream food and energy systems that are relied on by billions of people. The construction of more reservoirs designed to regulate streamflow and produce hydropower is
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a critical part of strategies for adapting to these changes. However, these projects are vulnerable to a complex set of interacting processes that are destabilizing landscapes throughout the region. Ranging in severity and the pace of change, these processes include glacial retreat and detachments, permafrost thaw and associated landslides, rock–ice avalanches, debris flows and outburst floods from glacial lakes and landslide-dammed lakes. The result is large amounts of sediment being mobilized that can fill up reservoirs, cause dam failure and degrade power turbines. Here we recommend forward-looking design and maintenance measures and sustainable sediment management solutions that can help transition towards climate change-resilient dams and reservoirs in High Mountain Asia, in large part based on improved monitoring and prediction of compound and cascading hazards.
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Keywords: Taverne, General Earth and Planetary Sciences
ISSN: 1752-0894
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Note: Funding Information: This work is partially funded by a Marsden grant administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand. The authors would like to thank Dr Lorenzo Toniazzi and Professor Christian Lubich for many valuable discussions. Funding Information: This work was supported by Singapore MOE (R-109-000-273-112 and R-109-000-227-115; X.L., D.L.), Cuomo Foundation and IPCC Scholarship Award (D.L.), Swiss National Science Foundation (IZLCZ2_169979/1; T.B.), European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (676819; W.W.I., J.F.S.), Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under the research programme VIDI (016.161.308; W.W.I., J.F.S.), NSFC (42171086; Y.N.), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada (04207-2020; D.H.S.) and Water and Air theme of ICIMOD (S.N., J.F.S.). We thank I. Overeem, A. Kettner, J. Syvitski and IAG DENUCHANGE working group for discussions on erosion and sediment fluxes. The views and interpretations in this publication are those of the authors and are not necessarily attributable to their organizations. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, Springer Nature Limited.
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