The Dams and the Fishes: Pursuing More Optimal Outcomes Through Hydropower by Design

Hydropower is a low-carbon source of energy but can also have dramatic negative impacts on river ecosystems and their services, such as fisheries. Because hydropower dams are proliferating rapidly around the world, the Conservancy is now developing the science to support more optimal outcomes between energy and river ecosystems. Called “hydropower by design,” this approach applies various tools to evaluate the tradeoffs between different spatial arrangements of dams and identify the set of dams that can achieve a given energy objective for the lowest impact.