Methods applied to the estimation of Greenhouse Gases in hydroelectric reservoirs

Abstract

Introduction/objective: Emissions of naturally occurring greenhouse gases (GHG) have increased due to anthropogenic actions, threatening the planet with environmental imbalance. Reservoirs for storing water, which is later used to drive the turbines of hydroelectric power plants, accumulate sediments generating GHGs. This paper analyzes the methods used to estimate GHG emissions in reservoirs, classifying the scientific publications found in the ScienceDirect and Google Scholar search engines. Methodology: The analytical method uses a Boolean expression to collect information in the indicated search engines and extract the relevant literature considering factors such as water temperature, geographic location, type and surface area of the reservoir, type of gas and technology, attributing a relevance value to each characteristic to elaborate a matrix of results. Results: The results show that more than 50% are based on GHG estimates and the rest on direct measurements in the reservoirs. In addition, the contribution of artificial intelligence as an estimation technique is less than 6 %. Conclusions: Finally, the world regions where studies are conducted are proportionally distributed and the analysis of scientific literature indicates versatility in GHG estimation methods in hydropower reservoirs.