Small Hydropower Plants' Proliferation Would Negatively Affect Local Herpetofauna

Jelka Crnobrnja-Isailović,Bogdan Jovanović,Tijana Čubrić,Nada Ćosić,Marija Ilić,Jelena Ćorović,Dragana Stojadinović

doi:10.3389/fevo.2021.610325

Jelka Crnobrnja-Isailović, Bogdan Jovanović + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.610325

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Abstract

Hydropower plants (HPPs) have a strong environmental impact on freshwater wetlands. Small diversion HPPs (SDHPPs) with 0.1–10 MW of installed power, redirect water from small mountainous rivers into several-kilometer-long tubes, disrupting complex dynamics of local aquatic food webs and their interactions with neighbor terrestrial food webs. It certainly affects local aquatic communities, but it is often neglected that two highly threatened vertebrate groups—amphibians and reptiles—which live in and around these wetlands, could be affected as well. In the Balkan peninsula, a part of Southeastern Europe, SDHPPs recently became very attractive and profitable for potential investors after they were proclaimed as eligible for subsidies from the national budget. As a result, in year 2020, the maximal projected number of SHPPs in the Balkans increased to 4,556. According to the literature data, ~28% of amphibian species in the Balkan Peninsula use small rivers and streams in the upper parts of watersheds as feeding, breeding and/or nursery habitats. Additionally, 38% of the total number of reptile species in Europe are registered in the hilly/mountainous areas of the peninsula, and 33% of these species strictly need humid habitats. The attempt of this mini-review is to present the facts which show that SHPPs and DSHPPs, in the way they are currently being installed, present harmful energy solution for the biodiversity of the mountain parts of Balkan peninsula, particularly for local amphibian and reptile populations which rely on lotic aquatic ecosystems and/or humid terrestrial habitats.

Highlights

Alarming trends for climate change presented in 1979 on the First World Climate Conference in Geneva suggested urgent global actions toward minimization of, or a total ban on, fossil fuels consumption (Ripple et al, 2020)
Reptiles are often direct or indirect terrestrial consumers, and predators of species that are a part of the freshwater ecosystems: more than 90% of the biomass of freshwater species is regularly being transferred to terrestrial predators and every change in the population dynamics of their prey has an impact on abundance, territoriality, and, in the end, on overall reproductive success of those predator species (Polis et al, 1997)
Hudjek et al (2020) reviewed the distribution and trends of Hydropower plants (HPPs) in selected countries of the Balkan Peninsula; they revealed an unsatisfactory level of national monitoring programs

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Alarming trends for climate change presented in 1979 on the First World Climate Conference in Geneva suggested urgent global actions toward minimization of, or a total ban on, fossil fuels consumption (Ripple et al, 2020). Small lotic ecosystems in the upper parts of river sheds support biological communities adapted to fast-flowing and dynamic habitats (see above) and this makes the ecological impact of SHPP (per mega-watt of produced power) much higher than that of large HPP (Lange et al, 2015). These communities could and often do consist of some endemic species (Meyer et al, 2007), so their disruption contradicts both national and international legislation on biodiversity conservation [see in: Crnobrnja-Isailovic (2020)]. A short overview in Republic of Serbia revealed that more amphibian species than had TABLE 1 | List of amphibian species inhabiting hilly/mountain areas of the Balkan Peninsula

29 Rana temporaria

DISCUSSION

Part 4. Status of Conservation and Decline of Amphibians: Eastern Hemisphere

Findings

Status of Conservation and Decline of Amphibians: Eastern Hemisphere