Dams & Reservoirs in Canada

Dams & Reservoirs in Canada

Introduction and design

In Canada and around the world, the construction of dams to decrease flood risk, develop waterways to tie together energy for industry and commerce, and help ensure a reliable water supply for domestic, industrial and agricultural. While dams are an integral part of agricultural or industrial development, they are structures that alter river ecosystems in many different spatial and temporal scales. The role of the processes involved in these changes in cold climates is of particular interest to Canada (Anderson & Bhatti, 2008).

The Figure 1 illustrates the growth of large dams in Canada since the early twentieth century until today. Before the 1940s, the majority of large dams have been in southern Ontario and Quebec. Since then, large dams were built in all territories and all provinces. In the U.S., the most active period of dam construction took place between 1950 and 1970, and was called "the golden age of dam construction" (Doyle et al., 2003). We often hear the same comment regarding the situation in Canada. But as shown in Figure 1, during the 1970s, there was an almost equal intensity of dam construction in the 1950s. The peak year of 1970 is primarily due to an intensive dam construction in Newfoundland and northern Quebec. Since the 1970s, dam construction has continued to slow, the vast majority of new development (i.e.> 70%) continuing to Quebec. However, given the number of large dams under construction and the number of expansion projects, for example, in northern Quebec and in the Northwest Territories, one can really wonder if the great period of building large dams in Canada is over (Baxter & Glaude, 2007).

Although streams contain northern most of the untapped potential of large-scale hydropower in Canada, there is also a trend towards the construction of small hydro. Many small power plants were operating in the early twentieth century, but electric utilities have gradually opted for more impressive power to achieve economies of scale. In fact, many small plants were decommissioned after World War II because it gradually became less profitable to maintain them and exploit them. More recently, however, because of the size, cost and negative environmental impacts of large dam projects, hydro development has focused increasingly on small hydro projects, c. to d. those less than 10 MW of installed capacity. Many of these plants are plants "over water". Currently in Canada there are over 300 plants with an installed capacity of 15 MW or less and many others that are being studied, particularly in remote communities that rely on electricity produced by high cost of diesel plants. Technically, about 5,500 sites in Canada would be suitable for the production of small hydro (Dams in Canada, 2003).

Environmental Impacts Predictions

Over the past three decades, scientists have made significant efforts to better understand and predict the relationship between the flow of rivers and the number and quality of aquatic habitats. Collectively, these approaches are grouped under the term "Instream Flow" ...