Addressing environmental impacts while balancing multiple uses for water has been a longstanding challenge for hydropower, particularly when there is lack of access to information necessary to support decision-making. Therefore, ORNL has been working with a cross-section of hydropower stakeholders represented by members of the project’s Mission Advisory Board (MAB) and Science Advisory Board (SAB) to develop and refine an Environmental Decision Support (EDS) toolkit that can help interested users to prepare for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) licensing negotiations by identifying what existing information and data are available to support environmental impact assessments, which issues have project nexus, and which environmental issues might require more discussion and/or additional research. The final EDS toolkit will include a science-based River Function Indicator (RFI) Questionnaire tool and user guide, a set of key river function and terminology definitions, the database of environmental metrics that was used to develop the list of 42 RFIs in 6 categories, and a retrospective analysis of environmental studies requested and implemented during 29 nonfederal hydropower licensing processes. The EDS toolkit will be made available to the public through DOE’s HydroSource website to help stakeholders identify the key metrics of environmental sustainability for their hydropower projects so that they can work together to develop strategies that avoid, minimize, or mitigate impacts to the riverine ecosystem.
