“Disturbing Scale”
Reservoirs are losing storage capacity worldwide
Rivers fill reservoirs with water. But they also bring material with them that gradually fills up the tanks. According to a UN study, dams around the world are at risk of losing around a quarter of their storage capacity by 2050 as a result of this ingress of sediment.
According to a new study, reservoirs, such as the Gibidum reservoir in the picture, will lose on average a quarter of their storage capacity by 2050. (archive image)
According to the study, in Switzerland there is even a risk of losing a third of the storage capacity. The scale of the losses is worrying as the world is already facing a number of other water supply problems, the United Nations University said on Wednesday.
The estimated loss compared to the original capacity adds up to 1.65 trillion cubic meters for the approximately 50,000 plants considered. This corresponds to the annual water consumption of India, China, Indonesia, France and Canada combined.
The entry of sediments into the reservoirs has become one of the most important challenges for the global water storage infrastructure, reported the research team at the United Nations University (UNU) in Hamilton (Canada).
(SDA)