Abstract
Abstract. Dams and their reservoirs generate major impacts on society and the environment. In general, its relevance relies on facilitating the management of water resources for anthropogenic purposes. However, dams could also generate many potential adverse impacts related to safety, ecology or biodiversity. These factors, as well as the additional effects that climate change could cause in these infrastructures and their surrounding environment, highlight the importance of dams and the necessity for their continuous monitoring and study. There are several studies examining dams both at regional and global scales; however, those that include the South America region focus mainly on the most renowned basins (primarily the Amazon basin), most likely due to the lack of records on the rest of the basins of the region. For this reason, a consistent database of georeferenced dams located in South America is presented: Dataset of Georeferenced Dams in South America (DDSA). It contains 1010 entries of dams with a combined reservoir volume of 1017 km3, and it is presented in the form of a list describing a total of 24 attributes that include the dams' names, characteristics, purposes and georeferenced locations. Also, hydrological information on the dams' catchments is also included: catchment area, mean precipitation, mean near-surface temperature, mean potential evapotranspiration, mean runoff, catchment population, catchment equipped area for irrigation, aridity index, residence time and degree of regulation. Information was obtained from public records, governments records, existing international databases and extensive internet research. Each register was validated individually and geolocated using public-access online map browsers, and then, hydrological and additional information was derived from a hydrological model computed using the HydroSHEDS (Hydrological data and maps based on SHuttle Elevation Derivatives at multiple Scales) dataset. With this database, we expect to contribute to the development of new research in this region. The database is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4315647 (Paredes-Beltran et al., 2020).
Highlights
Dams and their reservoirs provide continuous water supply for different anthropogenic necessities such as electricity generation, water supply, irrigation, flood control, livestock feed or recreation
This represents a noticeable progress in the identification and geolocation of dams in the region and enables the opportunity for new research that allows for a more precise understanding of the water resource systems in the region
This database increases dam entries as a total regional number and increases the number of entries per country, which means that with this database we expect to contribute to new research in study areas that have not been considered to date due to the absence of reliable information
Summary
Dams and their reservoirs provide continuous water supply for different anthropogenic necessities such as electricity generation, water supply, irrigation, flood control, livestock feed or recreation. This becomes crucial in areas where water resources are scarce either by seasonality or due to the increasing effects of climate change. In many cases dams and their reservoirs are controversial because they can cause acute and chronic impacts in the environment and in the nearby human settlements These impacts are generally well known and include the modification of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, reduction of biodiversity, changes in the morphology of river systems, degradation of water quality and characteristics, alterations in sediment and nutrient discharge, changes in seasonal hydrological regimes, the migration of human settlements, or changes in land-use patterns (Barbarossa et al, 2020; Bednarek, 2001; Nilsson et al, 2005; Pekel et al, 2016; Stoate et al, 2009). Paredes-Beltran et al.: Dataset of Georeferenced Dams in South America (DDSA)
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