An optimization approach for managing environmental impacts of generating hydropower on fish biodiversity

The present study proposes an applicable framework to mitigate the impacts of generating hydropower on the fish biodiversity in the large reservoirs considering water quality and hydraulic factors. Moreover, several data driven models were utilized for simulating effective parameters. Finally, a multivariate linear regression model was used to estimate the fish biodiversity index in which two combined hydraulic and water quality indices were the inputs of the model and the fish biodiversity index was the output of the model. Then, all the simulators were applied in the structure of the hydropower plant operation optimization for different hydrological conditions (i.e. dry years, normal years and wet years) in which two purposes were defined: 1- minimizing the fish biodiversity loss 2- minimizing the loss of generating hydropower. Based on the results in the case study, all the simulators are reliable to model the physical flow, water quality parameters and the fish biodiversity index. The optimization model is able to minimize the impacts on the fish biodiversity properly. The reliability of generating hydropower in the dry years is 30%, while it is 53% in the wet years. High computational complexities might be a limitation for the model.