Sustainable Surface Water Storage Development: Measuring Economic Benefits and Ecological and Social Impacts of Reservoir System Configurations

Eriyagama, Nishadi, Smakhtin, Vladimir and Udamulla, Lakshika, (2022). Sustainable Surface Water Storage Development: Measuring Economic Benefits and Ecological and Social Impacts of Reservoir System Configurations. Water, 14(3), 1-27

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  • Sub-type Journal article
    Author Eriyagama, Nishadi
    Smakhtin, Vladimir
    Udamulla, Lakshika
    Title Sustainable Surface Water Storage Development: Measuring Economic Benefits and Ecological and Social Impacts of Reservoir System Configurations
    Appearing in Water
    Volume 14
    Issue No. 3
    Publication Date 2022-01-20
    Place of Publication Basel
    Publisher MDPI
    Start page 1
    End page 27
    Language eng
    Abstract This paper illustrates an approach to measuring economic benefits and ecological and social impacts of various configurations of reservoir systems for basin-wide planning. It suggests indicators and examines their behavior under several reservoir arrangement scenarios using two river basins in Sri Lanka as examples. A river regulation index is modified to take into account the volume of flow captured by reservoirs and their placement and type. Indices of connectivity illustrate that the lowest river connectivity in a basin results from a single new reservoir placed on the main stem of a previously unregulated river between the two locations that command 50% and 75% of the basin area. The ratio of the total affected population to the total number of beneficiaries is shown to increase as the cumulative reservoir capacity in a river basin increases. An integrated index comparing the performance of different reservoir system configurations shows that while results differ from basin to basin, the cumulative effects of a large number of small reservoirs may be comparable to those with a few large reservoirs, especially at higher storage capacities.
    Keyword surface water storage;
    water reservoirs
    sustainability
    flow regulation
    river connectivity
    equity
    Copyright Holder The Authors
    Copyright Year 2022
    Copyright type Creative commons
    DOI 10.3390/w14030307
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    Created: Thu, 03 Feb 2022, 07:33:03 JST by Zeineb Bouhlel on behalf of UNU INWEH