With their unripened credentials , hydroelectric dams have been build up at an exceptional rate all over the world . But their true environmental and ecological cost are easy starting to unravel , as anew studyshows how this renewable energy germ can aim species out and dramatically reduce biodiversity .
“ Hydroelectric dams have been thought to be an environmentally well-disposed seed of renewable power – and in late years they have been built to supply the burgeoning energy demands of emerging tropic country , ” explain Dr. Maíra Benchimol , who conduct thestudypublished inPLoS One . “ Our research add evidence that woods biodiversity also pays a grievous price when large dyke are built . ”
The research looked at the effect the Balbina Dam in central Brazil had on the neighborhood ’s wildlife . When the dam was built in the 1980s , it put a once continuous and untouched 2,360 - square - kilometer ( 910 - square - mile ) area of forest underwater , killing many tree and form an stilted archipelago of over 3,500 islands . The squad of scientists from theUniversity of East Angliaspent two years appraise some of these island , and liken them to other areas of the forest untouched by the rising pee .
The researchers placed camera traps throughout the study sphere to record the metal money and their relative teemingness , and used high - solution satellite range to assess how much forest abasement occurs on the island . What they found was far-flung departure of mintage living on the island , with tumid mammal , Bronx cheer and tortoises miss from most of the islands they looked at .
Puma caught on the camera trap . credit rating : Eduardo M. Venticinque
“ We constitute that only a few islands larger than 475 hectares still moderate a diverse residential district of animal and bird species , which stand for to only 0.7 per cent of all islands in the reservoir , ” aver Benchimol . “ In addition to the effect of area step-down , most small islands succumbed to roll exposure and ephemeral fires that pass off during a severe El Niño drouth in 1997 - 98 . ”
All this adds to the mature body of evidence that hydroelectric dams are not the fresh , green energy once imagine . Despite the dam being the world ’s largest in terminal figure of entire flooded field , after all that damage and death , it only manages a tiny content of 250 megawatt . When the amount of methane that is released from the man-made lake due to all the decomposing topic is require into accounting , it ’s calculatedto produce more nursery gas than even the dirtiest of coal power plants .
Despite this , Brazil is still planning on dam up more confluent of the Amazon , flooding yet more forest and forcing indigenous peoples out of their demesne . The researchers recommend that all these factors be taken into consideration when any judgment of a new dekameter is made , as currently they ’re discount .
