Challenges to Modeling the GHG Footprint of Hydropower Reservoirs
Abstract: Quantifying greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from waterbodies is critical for carbon accounting as well as short- to long-term management, planning, and policy decisions related to water and energy infrastructure. Complications to describing waterbody GHGs include the type and coverage of ground-truthed observations, variability in waterbodies and their surroundings over different time scales, and difficulties in representing waterbodies as part of larger systems. Additionally, hydropower reservoir emissions are also complicated by the challenge of attribution; many hydropower reservoirs serve multiple purposes and there are many existing dams built for non-power purposes that could potentially be retrofit for generation. This talk explores how these challenges impact reservoir GHG modeling using examples from US hydropower and highlights emerging methods and tools that can help address them.
Biography: Carly Hansen works in the Water Resource Science and Engineering Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Prior to coming to ORNL, she was a postdoctoral researcher and instructor at the University of Utah where she helped develop a systems dynamic model for an urban river basin with the goal of exploring complex interactions between snowmelt-driven reservoir systems, changing climate conditions, urban water use, and lake water quality.
She received her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Utah, where she used a variety of remote sensing, statistical analyses, and hydroinformatic tools to evaluate trends and driving factors relevant to short-term monitoring of algal blooms. Additionally, she has used systems models to explore how various urban development, water use, and climate impact engineered water systems.
At ORNL, Carly uses her background to explore links between built/natural hydrology and hydropower systems. Recent areas of focus include:
- Assessing national-scale data improvement needs for dams and reservoirs.
- Classifying non-powered dams and retrofits of non-powered dams and supporting the development of tools that facilitate exploration of dam data.
- Evaluating flexibility of reservoir storage at existing hydropower reservoirs.
- Exploring hydroclimate, morphology, water quality, and operational decisions that influence greenhouse gas emissions.