Hydropower and Environmental Resource Assessment (HERA): a computational tool for the assessment of the hydropower potential of watersheds considering engineering and socio-environmental aspects.

Abstract:

The hydroelectric potential of a river is proportional to its head and water flows. Selecting the best development alternative for Greenfield projects watersheds is a difficult task, since it must balance demands for infrastructure, especially in the developing world where a large potential remains unexplored, with environmental conservation. Discussions usually diverge into antagonistic views, as in recent projects in the Amazon forest, for example.

This motivates the construction of a computational tool that will support a more qualified debate regarding development/conservation options. HERA provides the optimal head division partition of a river considering technical, economic and environmental aspects.

HERA has three main components: (i) pre-processing GIS of topographic and hydrologic data; (ii) automatic engineering and equipment design and budget estimation for candidate projects; (iii) translation of division-partition problem into a mathematical programming model.

By integrating an automatic calculation with geoprocessing tools, cloud computation and optimization techniques, HERA makes it possible countless head partition division alternatives to be intrinsically compared - a great advantage with respect to traditional field surveys followed by engineering design methods.

Based on optimization techniques, HERA determines which hydro plants should be built, including location, design, technical data (e.g. water head, reservoir area and volume, engineering design (dam, spillways, etc.) and costs). The results can be visualized in the HERA interface, exported to GIS software, Google Earth or CAD systems.

HERA has a global scope of application since the main input data area a Digital Terrain Model and water inflows at gauging stations. The objective is to contribute to an increased rationality of decisions by presenting to the stakeholders a clear and quantitative view of the alternatives, their opportunities and threats.