Researcher Suggests Building Dams Without Impacting Climate

Faisal Hossain, a civil engineering professor from Tennessee Tech University, has made a presentation on how dams influence local climate. He was invited to Washington by the staff of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and the Environment who were looking forward to studying the need for more adaptability in the construction of large dams.

He suggested the government to have future plans about the present water structures for the next 10 to 15 years and cautioned them how such decisions will affect a number of present purposes such as generation of hydropower, use of water irrigation and water supply. He suggested for a flexible operations guide in the dams operations to integrate the findings of his team in the day to day operations of the dams.

He suggested that the present dam’s operations need to take cue from the recent engineering and scientific researches about the influence of large dams on the climatic conditions of the places that remain close to the constructed reservoirs. He explained that such local influence successively will manipulate an intricate interaction leading to global warming. He added that any change in the amount of water accessible for evaporation at a reservoir will have a local effect such as change in temperature and humidity in places around the reservoir and under right conditions may also have a role in the quantity of rain at the region.

He explained that his discussions in Washington were more focused on the required changes in the operational rules for the reservoirs to handle more quantity of incoming water due to climatic changes and rainstorms and the compromises required to implement such decisions.

While most of Hossain’s suggestions will have a bearing on the U.S. dams they will also be applicable to the newly constructed dams in Africa and Asia. He has advocated new learning from the construction of old dams to design better dams in future considering the long term impact of the dams on climate.