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Emission of greenhouse gases from French temperate hydropower reservoirs

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Abstract

The emission of CO2 and CH4 by diffusion, bubbling and downstream was measured in ten reservoirs representative of the diversity of French hydropower reservoirs in 2016. In all reservoirs, higher fluxes were measured in summer than in spring and winter. Low fluxes were measured in alpine reservoirs as compared to run-of-the-river and storage reservoirs. The low temperatures as well as the low organic matter input from the watershed explained this observation. Bubbling was higher in run-of-the-river reservoirs, as compared to storage reservoirs. This was related to a higher ratio between the length of wooded river network in the watershed, and the reservoir surface area. This ratio was considered as a proxy for allochthonous particulate organic matter input per reservoir surface unit and its accumulation in the sediments. In the larger storage reservoirs, this preferential sedimentation area was limited to the river-reservoir transition zone, the extent of which is primarily a function of reservoir hydrodynamic and morphological parameters. Conversely, the long water residence time in deep storage reservoirs favoured greenhouse gas (GHG) accumulation in the bottom water and diffusion and downstream pathways as compared to bubbling. Classical drivers of GHG emissions in large reservoirs partly failed to explain our measurements, especially for bubbling which seemed to be primarily controlled by allochthonous particulate organic matter input per reservoir surface area. This may results from the small size and the large diversity of the studied reservoirs as compared to the larger systems classically used for global estimates.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to people from EDF who helped us for the selection of the reservoirs (operational constraints), for accessing the reservoirs or during the drafting of the manuscript: Benoit Peccol, Caroline Kerjean, Fabian Goeury, Georges Denise, Géraldine Duvochel, Guy Rouge, Isabelle Dubien, Isabelle Pain, Jean Copreaux, Julien Hacquard, Julien Julhes, Juliette Vetier, Laura Guitteny, Laurent Coudert, Ludovic Barthélemy, Marine Joly-Kermarec, Matthieu Vachon, Pierre Fiot, Pierre Yves Boesch, Rémy Dorget, Sébastien Farge, Thierry Benarous, Tim Kestens and Yvan Samouillet. We also thank Agnès Barillier and Frederick Jacob (also from EDF) for our interesting discussions, Jerôme Condette for GIS calculations, Jean-Noel Avrillier and Anne Millery for their help during field campaigns and analysis. Finally, we are grateful to John Harrison who thoroughly read and improved the paper. This work was supported by EDF. Funding was provided by Électricité de France.

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Author notes

  1. Maud Demarty

    Present address: Aqua-Consult, 5154 16ème avenue, Montreal, QC, H1X 2R9, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. EDF-Hydro Engineering Center, Savoie Technolac, 73290, La Motte Servolex, France

    Vincent Chanudet

  2. INRA UMR 042 CARRTEL, University of Savoie Mont-Blanc, 73370, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France

    Jérémie Gaillard, Johan Lambelain, Jim Félix-Faure & Etienne Dambrine

  3. Englobe, 001 Sherbrooke St bureau 600, Montreal, QC, H2L 1L3, Canada

    Maud Demarty

  4. EDF-DPNT-DIPDE-D2ED, 154 Avenue Thiers, 69458, Lyon, France

    Stéphane Descloux

  5. EDF-DTG, 134 Chemin de l′Étang, 38950, Saint-Martin-le-Vinoux, France

    Alain Poirel

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Chanudet, V., Gaillard, J., Lambelain, J. et al. Emission of greenhouse gases from French temperate hydropower reservoirs. Aquat Sci 82, 51 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-020-00721-3

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