Impact of climate change on hydropower production within the La Plata Basin

• Published in: International journal of river basin management Vol. 11; no. 4; pp. 449 - 462
• Main Authors: Fill, Heinz Dieter, Mine, Miriam Rita Moro, Fernandes, Cristovao Vicente Scapulatempo, Bessa, Marcelo Rodrigues
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Taylor & Francis 01.12.2013; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Basins; Brazil; Climate change; Climate models; Consultancy services; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Estimates; Exact sciences and technology; Freshwater; Hydrology; Hydrology. Hydrogeology; hydropower production; Mathematical models; natural energy hydrograph; Regional; risk assessment; stationarity; stochastic processes; Water resources; South America; Brazil; ASW, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro; MED, Western Mediterranean; MED; Argentina, La Plata Basin; ASW, Brazil; risk assessment; rainfall; natural energy hydrograph; Monte Carlo analysis; digital simulation; climate; infiltration; surface water; hydroelectric energy; numerical models; water resource management; prediction; temperature; stochastic processes; stationarity; hydrographs; methodology; climate change; streamflow; hydropower production
• ISSN: 1571-5124; 1814-2060
• DOI: 10.1080/15715124.2013.865638

This paper aims to estimate the variation of the combined dependable energy output of the set of major hydropower plants within the Brazilian part of the La Plata Basin due to possible climate changes during the twenty-first century. It uses and compares the predictions of two regional climate models, namely PROMES [Castro, M., Fernández, C., and Gaertner, M.A., 1993. Description of a mesoscale atmospheric numerical model. In: J.I. Díaz and J.L. Lions, eds. Mathematics, climate and environment. Rech. Math. Appl. Ser. Mason, 230-253; Gallardo, A., Galvan, C., and Mermejo, R., 2012. PROMES-MOSLEF: An atmosphere-ocean coupled regional model. Coupling and preliminary results over the Mediterranean basin. 4th HYMEX Workshop 2 2010] and RCA models [Rummukainem, M., 2010 . State-of-the-art with regional climate models. WIREs Climate Change, 1, 82-96]. Rainfall and temperature predictions are converted into streamflow at key gauge stations using Variable Infiltration Capacity Model [Liang, X., Lettenmaier, D.P., Wood, E.F., and Burges, E.F., 1994. A simple hydrologically based model of land surface water and energy fluxes for general circulation models. Journal of Geophysical Research, 99, n. D7, 14,451-14,428]. The evaluation of the dependable energy output used the natural energy hydrograph method engineering consultants (Canambra Engineering Consultants, 1969 . Power study of South Brazil. 13 v. Appendice XVII Final Report. Rio de Janeiro: Canambra Engineering Consultants), combined with the Monte Carlo simulation of synthetic series of natural energy. The main contribution of this paper is the consolidation of a methodology that provides estimates of the system's dependable energy as a function of the return period for both observed and future predicted streamflows. As a conclusion, a reduction of the dependable energy output of the hydropower plants within the La Plata Basin could be expected during the twenty-first century