Technical assessment of the Portuguese national programme for dams with high hydropower potential (PNBEPH)

• Autor(a) principal: Lembre, Hilde
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Outros Autores: Adriaenssens, Veronique, Lust, Arnoud, Devoldere, Kris, Willems, Sofie, Laureysens, Ilse, Olmeda, Concha, Geraldes, Ana Maria, Guimarães, Ana, Barrios, Violeta, Garcia, David
• Tipo de documento: Relatório
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/2916

The Portuguese National Programme for Dams with High Hydropower Potential (PNBEPH) foresees the construction of 10 new hydropower installations in several river basins. Among other relevant impacts that fall out of the scope of this study, hydropower projects can have an important impact on water quality - mainly on hydro-morphological conditions for aquatic life to sustain. According to the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the deadline for achieving a good status of surface waters is 2015. In the meantime, Member States should avoid taking action that could jeopardize the achievement of the objectives of the directive, notably the general objective of good status of water bodies. Derogations for building new infrastructure projects (notably dams) are possible under Article 4.7, if certain strict conditions are met and an assessment is done according to these conditions. These conditions include amongst others that there are no significantly better environmental options, the benefits of the new infrastructure outweigh the benefits of achieving the WFD environmental objectives and all practicable mitigation measures are taken to address the adverse impact of the status of the water body. In addition, the justification for those modifications should be included in the river basin management plans due to be adopted in December 2009 after public consultation.