<p>Holistic sustainable development is a philosophy that has gripped the world these days. With unprecedented situations being faced by the people every day, power consumption patterns and requirements are changing and so are the faces of the leading economies. Renewable energy, is the primary load bearer of a sustainable circular economy and hydropower being one of the earliest forms of it, has a wide application base. Generally, the technology utilises river water to generate power. However, like other renewable strategies it is assayed based on the greenhouse gas emissions during its operation. This unfortunately presents a true but blurry picture.&nbsp;Some of the long-term issues with creating a barrier in the path of a river are soil quality degradation in downstream regions due to lack of silt deposition near the banks, loss of aquatic life due to high speed turbine blades, disbalance in the nutrient cycle of aquatic systems due to storage the reverse pumping of water, water contamination with machinery oils, displacement of local communities, loss of soil fertility near the site due to drilling and tunnelling, landslides and seismic issues due to excavation of land which loosens the nearby soil cover. Evaluation of these parameters is necessary because sustainability is not just about tackling climate change through controlling greenhouse gas emissions. It is a more inclusive approach towards ecological conservation, human resource improvement and economic development. It considers the impacts and advantages of the entire life cycle of each and every element associated with it, on every single strata of the living world.&nbsp; Since hydropower projects are expensive large-scale initiatives, it is important to avoid any complimentary disadvantages of its implementation. This can be done by utilising tried and tested, climate and ecology responsive solutions for the same. Therefore, our goal is to analyse and compile various case studies of hydro power projects throughout the globe which caused some environmental or social disruption in their respective regions and the various steps that were taken by the government or the locals to tackle these problems. Many areas faced seismic problems, environmental degradation, water profile alterations and social displacement. But, by opting clean development management, new turbine technologies, new fish friendly channel designs which provide a free passage to fishes and landscaping procedures which feature indigenous vegetation to restore surrounding ecology, those regions were able to amend the problems with their hydropower projects.</p>

Socio-Environmental Impacts of Hydro Power Technology- a Review

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/POWER/POWER2021/volume/85109

ASME 2021 Power Conference (POWER2021)

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