Hydropower expansion and analysis of the use of strategic and integrated environmental assessment tools in Brazil

Abstract

Abstract In Brazil, over the next two decades, an additional 31.7 GW will be added to the hydropower sector in the northern region, to keep pace with the country׳s growing economy. Due to the socio-environmental vulnerability of this region, there is international concern about its conservation. Since 2007, the hydroelectric potential inventory has employed Integrated Environmental Assessments (IEA), taking into consideration an analysis of the cumulative and synergistic impacts of all the hydropower plants in the river basin. Also available is the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), a tool that has been used by the National Water Agency in its Strategic Water Resources Plan, which aims to support decision making at the political, planning, and program levels in the river basin, employing sustainable development scenarios. Both tools have been recently used in Brazil, and this paper aims to analyze their differences and their main contributions to the decision-making process in the Brazilian power sector. Therefore, we analyzed 3 studies on the implementation of new hydropower plants in the Tocantins–Araguaia River Basins: the Strategic Water Resources Plan for Tocantins and Araguaia River Basins—PERH-TA (using the SEA methodology), the IEA of the Tocantins River Basin and the IEA of the Araguaia River Basin, analyzing their methodologies, scenarios, results and recommendations. We found that the SEA, in contrast to the IEA, provides a broader and more independent vision about the social and environmental impacts. After the conclusion of the integrated and strategic studies, we verified that some recommendations are not being followed in the HPP planning process, since some dams had problems with environmental licenses, as mentioned in the studies. Therefore, we conclude that methodological adjustments, as well as political and institutional enhancements in these processes could make the tools more useful.