Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment for the Hydro-power Generating System Operated by Manitoba Hydro

Canada, with several large-scale, inter-provincial, and international river basins such as in the Lower Nelson River Basin (LNRB) located in Northern Manitoba is one of the largest hydro-power producers on the planet. LNRB traverses mid- to high-latitude regions and therefore is vulnerable to climate change. In the past eight decades, a series of unusual hydro-climatic conditions have changed the precipitation trends significantly and raised serious concerns for Manitoba Hydro (MH) about the vulnerability of their hydro-power generation. An integrated water management model, MODSIM-DSS is set up in this study for the river-reservoir system operated by MH. This model is used to evaluate the vulnerability of the system to the future climate conditions and identify the optimal operational and resource planning options to mitigate the inverse effects of the future climate scenarios. The HYPE model of the Nelson Churchill River Basins is run with four climate scenarios that predict [3˚C - 5˚C] increase in the temperature and [7% - 17%] increase in the precipitation to predict the inflow to the system for the period of 2021-2070. Results of this study demonstrate if the current system capacity, operational guidelines, and resource planning options lead to an inefficient hydro-power generation in the future. The model is used to identify climate scenarios that have the most significantly adverse effects on the hydro-power system operated by MH.

Keywords: Integrated Water Management, Reservoir Operations, Climate Change, Hydro-power Generation, System Vulnerability