The 2020 Renewable Energy Routemap targets for generation could be affected by environmental change impacts on the hydropower resource in future scenarios.
A spatial water balance model has been developed and applied to explore climate and land use change impacts on natural resources. Water management data and future water demand scenarios are being integrated with information on natural resources to examine the resilience of current hydro schemes to changes in water availability. This involves developing an understanding of water transfers, catchment areas and reservoir storage capacity and then relating this to hydropower potential.
To find out more about this work contact James Sample [1].
Links:
[1] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/james-sample