The Global Initiative Program pursues two converging lines of analysis. We are identifying the major dams where re-operating flood flows to emulate the natural hydrograph would produce the greatest benefits downstream in terms of restored floodplain ecosystems and human livelihoods such as fisheries, recessional agricultural, grazing, and other land uses dependent upon natural groundwater recharge.
Simultaneously, we are investigating the extent to which a “toolkit” of improved water management techniques can provide the targeted major dams with the flexibility in reservoir storage and release patterns necessary to reestablish environmental flow regimes. These water management techniques include:
- Reoperating irrigation reservoirs in conjunction with groundwater banks to generate surplus water supply and increase the flexibility in storage and release patterns to enable environmental flows to be re-established.
- Changing the role that hydropower dams play in the mix of generators serving an electrical grid so that the dam can operate on a run-of-the-river basis – storing and releasing water in rhythm with inflow patterns rather than electricity demand patterns; and
- Addressing floodplain development patterns to enable flood control dams to pass through rather than control, the smaller flood events, thereby re-establishing seasonal inundation of the floodplain to restore its environmental functions.
With this work, we expect to produce nothing short of a transformation in the way existing dams are operated, and new dams are sited, designed and managed, to allow rivers to once again function as dynamic biohydrologic systems rather than as water delivery channels and power plants. This will be done by demonstrating successful techniques and outcomes in specific regional settings in partnership with the dam operators, planners, and regulators and with the river basin commissions and their water user communities.
