[EN] Reducing adverse impacts of Amazon hydropower expansion

Proposed hydropower dams at more than 350 sites throughout the Amazon require strategic evaluation of trade-offs between the numerous ecosystem services provided by this Earth’s largest and most biodiverse river basin.
The paper, published in Science and led by researchers from Cornell University, develops a multiobjective optimization to identify portfolios of sites that simultaneously minimize impacts on river flow, river connectivity, sediment transport, fish diversity, and greenhouse gas emissions while achieving energy production goals. Findings offer a transferable model for the evaluation of hydropower expansion in transboundary basins.
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