Data and informatics innovations to support dam retrofit and development decisions

Existing dams face many challenges from limitations of original construction or operational technology and rapid changes to the local climatic conditions, water/energy demands, and the financing/regulatory landscape. Although many dams provide critical services and benefits such as water supply, irrigation, or flood control, their age and underutilization raise questions about their future role. More than 93 percent of inventoried dams are non-powered, and many have experienced significant capacity reductions or changing inputs/demands over their lifetime. The urgent need to understand the opportunities related to retrofitting and energy development at existing dams is hindered by major obstacles in connecting the diverse infrastructure, hydrologic, environmental, and social information. To tackle this challenge, an ongoing effort across three US national laboratories is linking and analyzing data from federal and state agencies, developers, environmental and social science researchers, and infrastructure owners/operators. A suite of interactive tools driven by this database facilitates the exploration of opportunities at different scales and answers key questions relevant to retrofit and development decisions. We use these data and tools to highlight issues along the data collection-to-utilization continuum and describe patterns among previous development and potential new developments. Most future opportunities are smaller capacity installations compared to previously retrofitted dams, and there is a wide spread in the physical and socioeconomic settings for these types of water/energy projects. Comparisons of benefits and considerations that factor into development feasibility among sites are made possible through the interdisciplinary assessment of environmental, technical, and socioeconomic perspectives.