ESTIMATION OF DAMAGE CAUSED TO ENVIRONMENT BY EXPLOITATION OF SMALL HYDRO POWER PLANTS (SHPP)

Renewable energy, or rather «power plants utilizing renewable energy sources», is usually considered to be environmentally friendly technology of energy sector development. However.

Water is the condition of all forms of life on our planet. It has accompanied human from the beginning of times. It is one of the oldest sources of renewable energy.

Mankind learnt over the centuries how to draw more and more benefits from water. Water is currently one of the best-managed sources of energy and has a considerable input in the global energy production (the bigest part of all produced renewable energy come from hydro power plants).

Beside all this pluses, this approach can be accepted with some reservations, damage caused to environ­ment by exploitation of the small hydro power plants are not estimated in cost units. Small Hydro power plants can significantly impact the surrounding area. Degradation of surrounding flora and fauna brings a number of negative environmental outcomes and as a result distorted economical figures.

Estimation of damage caused to environment one of the recent important issue of environmental man­agement.

Hydro Power Plants has traditionally been considered environmentally friendly because it represents a clean and renewable energy source. The term renewable refers to the hydro- logic cycle that circulates water back to rivers, streams, and lakes each year. At hydroelectric projects, this water is used as fuel to generate electricity. In contrast, fossil fuels like coal, nat­ural gas, or oil must be extracted from the earth and burned to produce electricity. The term clean is also used because production of elec­tricity with hydropower does not pollute the air, contribute to acid rain or ozone depletion because of carbon dioxide emissions, or leave highly toxic waste.

Constuction and operation of small hydro power plants in recent years become to be very popular in Armenia. The Environmental Im­pact Assessment by the Ministry of Nature Protection of the Republic of Armenia pro­vide a positive conclusion for the construction of SHPP when relevant fish ways measures are established, a minimum water flow (envi­ronmental flow) built in order to ensure the en­vironmental stability of the river and fish and recultivation measures have done. The SHPP project developers are obligate by law to meet this requirements.

These requirements are not covering all en­vironmental problems affected by exploitation of SHPP, particularly damage caused to sur­rounding flora and fauna and economical com­pensation through by SHPP affect.

Environmental impacts generally relate to how a hydro power plant affects a river's eco­system, fish and surrounding area.

The affect of regulation on fish and fishing is a complicated interaction between a number of physical and biological factors. The natural hab­itat of fish is formed by physical circumstances such as water level, water speed and hiding pos­sibilities, and also access to food. Draining would be completely devastating to the fish. The amount of water will also affect the fish in different ways, depending on the age of the fish and the fish spe­cies. Estimation of damage can be calculated by market prices and by alternative methods.

The environmental and social impacts of many feasible hydro power plants are unac­ceptable and these hydro power plants should never be developed.

There are recommendations which should ensure that decision-making results in a more balanced outcome, giving equal weight to en­vironmental and social factors as to economic and financial factors.

Understanding how Small Hydro Power Plants affects surrounding flora and fauna is vi­tally important. Examining these issues, however, needs to be done in a broad context for the reasson that there is no two hydro power plants are exactly alike, and many are very different. Thus, while is­sues can be examined in general terms, one should not draw conclusions that all or even most projects have similar environmental impacts.

In terms of reducing the ecosystem impacts of hydro power plants, the following steps of the framework is particularly important — Com­prehensive needs and options assessments, a river basin approach to site selection and ef­fective mitigation measures.

Specific ecosystem impacts caused by a SHPP largely depend on the following vari­ables:

1. The size and flow rate of the river or trib­utary where the project is located.

2. The climatic and habitat conditions that exist.

3. The type, size, design, and operation of the project.

4. Cumulative impacts (SHPP is located upstream or downstream of other SHPP).

Very important issue is environmental flows changes to river flows are one of the key con­sequences of the construction of dams. Envi­ronmental flows provide critical contributions to river health, economic development and pov­erty alleviation (IUCN, 2003). Generally eenvi- ronmental flows are not natural flows but aim to find a balance for meeting a variety of water needs, including those of ecosystems and down­stream communities, but in Armenia environ­mental flows are calculated by governmental de­cree № 592-N from 22 May of 2003¹, that based on former Soviet Union Norms² and it's not enough for balanced environmental conditions.

There is a several problems that accrue by operation of SHPP such as water temperature, super saturation, changing water levels, sedi­mentation, erosion, changing habitat condi­tions for fish and wildlife,

Conclutions

Hydropower does have a role in a sustain­able energy future but its potential should not be developed at the expense of water and sur­rounding ecosystems. Very Important to en­sure a better balance between economic, so­cial and environmental considerations when it comes to decision-making on hydro power plants.

SHPP affect the ecosystems of rivers and their surrounding areas. The degree, how­ever, to which any SHPP affects a river, var­ies widely. As discussed, one of the most im­portant variables is run-of-the-river SHPP. Other variables include the size and flow rate of the river or tributary where the project is located; the existing habitat and climatic con­ditions; the type, size, and design of a proj­ect; and whether a project is located upstream or downstream.

During calculation of SHPP constraction costs nessesary to add costs on compensation of damage caused to environmenta that can in- fluentially change cost unit produced electro energy price. This procedure should be done based different ecologic-economical valuation methods such as alternative, travel, marked based etc.

Literature

1. 1. Dyson, M., Berkamp, G., Scanlon, J. (2003) Flow — the Essentials of Environmental Flows. IUCN, Gland and Cambridge.

   2. Governmental decree № 592-N from 22 May of 2003 of the Republic of Armenia.

   3. Governmental decree № 974 from 13 June 2006 of the Republic of Armenia.

   4. The Low of the Republic of Armenia on energy saving and renewable energy from 09 November 2004.

   5. United Nations (2003) Water for People, Water for Life — the United Nations World Water Development Report. United Nations.

   6. World Commission on Dams (2000) Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision- Making. www.dams.org.

   7. World Energy Council (2004) Survey of energy resources: hydropower. http://www.worldenergy. org/wec-geis/publications/reports/ser/hydro/hydro.asp.

   8. WWF (2003) Managing Rivers wisely. http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/freshwater/ what_we_do/river_basins/index.cfm.
      
      1 Calculated by 75 percent of perennial data.
      2 «Санитарные правила проектирования, строительства и эксплуатации водохранилищ» СанПиН 3907-85.

      E. E. Grigoryan

      Republic of Armenia, Association of Young Environmental Lawyers and Economists NGO (Co-President)