Safeguarding migratory fish via strategic planning of future small hydropower in Brazil

Couto, Thiago B. A., Messager, Mathis L. and Olden, Julian D. (2021) Safeguarding migratory fish via strategic planning of future small hydropower in Brazil. Nature Sustainability, 4 (5). pp. 409-416. ISSN 2398-9629

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Abstract

Small hydropower plants (SHPs) are proliferating globally, but their cumulative threat to blocking migratory fish and the fisheries that these fish sustain has been underappreciated when compared with large hydropower plants (LHPs). Here, we quantified the trade-offs between hydroelectric generation capacity and the impacts on river connectivity for thousands of current and projected future dams across Brazil. SHPs are the main source of river fragmentation, resulting in average connectivity losses of fourfold greater than LHPs. Fragmentation by SHPs is projected to increase by 21% in the future, and two-thirds of the 191 migratory species assessed occupy basins that will experience greater connectivity losses due to SHPs than LHPs. A Pareto frontier analysis identified future dam portfolios that could halve the number of hydropower plants that are required to deliver the same energy-generation capacity compared with the least-favourable solutions, while simultaneously resulting in lower river fragmentation and protecting numerous undammed basins. Our results highlight the need for strategic planning that considers the unprecedented growth and cumulative effects of SHPs.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data availability: All of the analyses were based on governmental (ANEEL, IBGE, ICMBio) or open source datasets, such as HydroSHEDS and HydroBASINS. All references are included in the text. A repository with a research compendium including non-reproduceable data sources, intermediate products, scripts and guidance to reproduce the results is available at Figshare (https://figshare.com/s/5ba67b7f58ccc812ae70). The output data generated by our analysis are provided in Supplementary Tables 1–6. Code availability: The code used to analyse the data and generate figures are available at GitHub (https://github.com/messamat/BrazilDCI_Python and https://github.com/messamat/BrazilDCI_R). Funding information: J.D.O. was supported by a H. Mason Keeler Endowed Professorship from the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, who also supported T.B.A.C.; T.B.A.C. received the CNPq/Science Without Borders Fellowship (203991/2014-1), and research grants from Rufford Foundation and National Geographic Society.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	global and planetary change,food science,geography, planning and development,ecology,renewable energy, sustainability and the environment,urban studies,nature and landscape conservation,management, monitoring, policy and law,sdg 7 - affordable and clean energy ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2306
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	30 Sep 2025 11:30
Last Modified:	04 Nov 2025 23:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/100569
DOI:	10.1038/s41893-020-00665-4

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