The project

The use of clean energy sources to meet the current and future energy demands, together with the international consensus to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, place hydropower as a major sustainable alternative. However, its production involves significant impacts on the dynamics and continuity of river systems. The rapid oscillations of flow (water pulses called hydropeaks) generated by the hydropower facilities, significantly interfere on the flow and the sedimentary regimes of rivers, as well as on their ecological functioning.

It is necessary, therefore, to analyze these bio-physical processes to achieve a balance between energy production and conservation of fluvial ecosystems in which hydropower generation takes place. The main objective of MorphPeak is to analyze the effects of hydropeaking on rivers morpho-sedimentary dynamics, as well as on the availability of physical habitat, and assessing the impacts on the biological communities of impacted river systems. In particular, the project will examine the impacts on benthic macroinvertebrate communities.

The project is based on a series of hypotheses and a holistic methodological frame comprehensibly designed to analyze these interactions at multiple spatial and temporal scales. So far, juts few investigations have considered jointly hydro-morphological and ecological responses in river reaches affected by hydropeaking. The high instability of channel habitat is the main limiting factor for the normal functioning of such ecosystems. For example, by altering the hydrological regime hydropeaking modifies flow hydraulics, the sedimentary structure of the riverbed, sediment transport, habitat availability and, consequently, the dynamics of biological communities.

The scientific knowledge generated by the project will allow developing less environmentally aggressive hydropeaks and, if needed, implement associated corrective measures, to minimize the impacts and to preserve the aquatic habitat. MorphPeak project uses last generation tools in the field of flow hydraulics and morpho-sedimentary monitoring and modelling, which will allow a high-definition assessment of the environmental impacts of the current hydropower generation schemes. The project will stablish scientific basis for designing new management strategies to juggle production and conservation by maximizing both energy and ecological benefits.

Altogether MorphPeak will enable managers for planning and implementation of advanced programs of restoration and conservation of river habitat in rivers affected by hydropeaking. The project evaluates the impacts from a holistic point of view and with a realistic approach; a remarkable fact is that, to date, there has not been consideration of both the morpho-sedimentary component and the vision of the river continuum in such studies. Likewise, MorphPeak provides information on the causal processes of the reduction of biodiversity and degradation of aquatic ecosystems in sections affected by hidropeaking, and promotes advancing in the application and validation of last generation technologies in fluvial geomorphology for detecting changes and analyzing river ecosystem functioning, all in a context of solid scientific internationalization of and close collaboration with end-users.

In the folowing figure we present the conceptual design of the project: