Contemporary Urban Affairs 2017, Volume 1, Number 3, pages 62– 65 Evaluation Rainfall Regime at the Hydroelectric Power Plant toward Climate Change * ¹ Francisco Pereira, ² Elison Eduardo Bierhals; ³ José Leandro Néris, 4 Matheus Rippel, 5 Claudinéia Brazil, 6 Luciane Salvi, 7 Nei Marçal 1, 2, 5 Energy Engineering, State University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil 3,4,5,6 Environmental and Sanitary Engineering, Don Bosco College of Porto Alegre, Brazil E mail: [email protected] , E mail: [email protected] , 3 E mail: [email protected] 4 E mail: [email protected] , 5 E mail: [email protected] , 6 E mail: [email protected] 7 Email: [email protected] A R T I C L E I N F O: A B S T R A C T Article history: The hydroelectric plants are first in the Brazilian energy matrix, so irregularities in Received 2 August 2017 the rainfall regime can affect the energy generation, thus evidencing the need to know Accepted 10 August 2017 the rainfall distribution in the studied area. This work aimed to evaluate possible Available online 12 October analysis of the impacts of climate change on the rainfall regime in the Machadinho hydroelectric region. For the research development, the IPCC-AR5 pessimistic 2017 scenario was used, representing a scenario with a continuous population growth and Keywords: high carbon dioxide emissions. From the historical series and organized projections, Climate Change; precipitation anomalies were calculated. Analyzing the difference between the IPCC-AR5; average of the month and the climatological normal, it was inferred that the model Precipitation. used presented a positive trend for precipitation in the period from 2026 - 2100, projecting anomalies between 25 and 200 mm per month. A greater amplitude is This work is licensed under a observed in the precipitation of 2076-2100, indicating an increase in the occurrence Creative Commons Attribution - of extreme events of precipitation, mainly in the spring period. Considering that the NonCommercial - NoDerivs 4.0. rains in the Machadinho hydroelectric region are increasing in the scenarios "CC-BY-NC-ND" analyzed, the average water level in the reservoir of the plant tends to increase. CONTEMPORARY URBAN AFFAIRS (2017) 1(3), 62-65. https://doi.org/10.25034/ijcua.2018.3682 www.ijcua.com Copyright © 2017 Contemporary Urban Affairs. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and The global concern about climate change has the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). been increasing, since the emission of gases from The IPCC was established with the mission of human activities contributes to the greenhouse evaluating research, interpreting it, and effect in the atmosphere, indicating significant gathering all relevant information, both impacts to the planet in the coming years. The technical, scientific and socioeconomic, into changes have been associated with the issue of comprehensive, easily understood and energy, especially renewable energies, which accessible reports by all in communities, are directly linked to climate variations. *Corresponding Author: According to Moraes (2013) in 1988, the Energy Engineering, State University of Rio Grande do Sul, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Brazil (IPCC) was created through an initiative of the E-mail address: [email protected] JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY URBAN AFFAIRS, 1(3), 62-65 / 2017 including decision makers (Grimm , 2016; 2.2 Data description and climate model Moraes, 2013). According to Nimer (1989), rainfall The scenarios were generated using the models occurred in Brazil’s southern region between used in the Fifth Report of the Intergovernmental 1990 and 2005 can be described as well Panel on Climate Change (IPCC-AR5), based on distributed, with maxima ranging from 1200 to an analysis of the seasonal variability of 2100 mm / year. precipitation and the consequent variation in The hydroelectric plants are in the first position in energy production. the Brazilian energy matrix, evidencing, The database used in this research is part of the therefore, the need to know the distribution of Phase 5 Intercomparison of Matching Models the pluviometric regime of the region. The main (CMIP5) and contributed to the preparation of objective of this work is to present an analysis of the fifth IPCC-AR5 report. The data were the impacts of climate change on rainfall in the extracted from ACCESS model (The Australian Machadinho’s hydroelectric power plant region, Community Climate and Earth System Simulator). which has an installed capacity of 1,140 MW and According to Van Vuuren et al., (2011) in AR5 the is located in the states of Santa Catarina and Rio scenarios are organized according to the RCPs. Grande do Sul. In this research, RCP 8.5 scenario was used which represents a scenario with a continuous 2. Material and Methods population growth, resulting in high carbon 2.1 Study area description dioxide emissions, with an increase Up to 4 ° C. An evaluation of precipitation projections in the According to Silveira et al, (2016), this scenario is region of the Machadinho Hydroelectric Power considered to be the most pessimistic for the 21st Plant, located in the Uruguay River basin (Figure century in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, 1). According to Schork et. Al. (2012), a consistent with no policy change to reduce Machadinho Hydroelectric Power Plant is emissions and strong reliance on fossil fuels. The located in the states of Santa Catarina and the climatic projections of the precipitation series Rio Grande do Sul between latitudes 27º31 'and were divided into three scenarios: Scenario-1 27º46' south and longitudes 51º47 'and 51º11' (2026-2050), Scenario-2 (2051-2075) and west. Scenario-3 (2076-2100), the seasonal analysis was The Basin extends between the done for each of these scenarios. parallels of 27º and 34º South latitude and the meridians of 49º30 'and 58º5'W. It covers an area 3. Methodology of approximately 384,000 km2, of which 174,494 The monthly precipitation data were extracted km2 are located in Brazil, equivalent to 2% of the from the IPCC-AR5 database, the information is Brazilian territory. According to Andreolli ,(2003) provided in grid points, and Grads (Grid Analysis its Brazilian portion is in the southern region, and Display System) software were used to comprising 46,000 km2 of the State of Santa extract the results. According to Souza (2004) Catarina and 130,000 km2 in the State of Rio Grads is a system of visualization and analysis of Grande do Sul. It is bordered to the north and data in grid points, it works with binary data northeast by the Serra Geral, to the south by the matrices, in which the variables can have up to border with the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, four dimensions (longitude, latitude, vertical east by the Central Depression Riograndense levels and time). After this stage, the historical and the west by Argentina. data series and the data series with the climatic projections were organized. The projections were divided into three 25-year scenarios: Scenario-1 (2026-2050), Scenario-2 (2051-2075) and Scenario-3 (2076-2100). In the sequence precipitation anomalies were calculated from the following equation: A (%) = ((P – P )/ P *100 (1) Pre MM MN MN) Which: APre (%) is the precipitation anomaly in Figure 1. Study area localization. percentage; P is the mean precipitation of the analyzed MM month; Francisco, Pereira; Elison Eduardo, Bierhals; José Leandro, Néris; Matheus, Rippel; Claudinéia, Brazil; Luciane, Salvi; Nei, Marçal 63 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY URBAN AFFAIRS, 1(3), 62-65 / 2017 P is the climatological norm corresponding to period that indicated the smallest increase in MN the analyzed month. precipitation, with values around 30 mm above the climatological norm. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines climatological normal as averages of climatological data calculated for consecutive periods of 30 years. 4. Results and Discussions The permanence curve is important for the study of precipitation variability, being possible to a) verify the probability of occurrence of the events that occur in the watershed. The figures show the permanence curves for Station 1 (Figure 3a) located at -26.25 ° latitude and -52.50 ° longitude and for station 2 (Figure 3b) located at -27.50 ° latitude And -50.63º longitude. In both stations, the trend in the increase of monthly average rainfall for the three scenarios was observed. Analyzing the third scenario of Posto 1, b) precipitation projections indicated an increase Figure 4. Seasonal Precipitation Anomalies: a) station 01 and of around 400 mm, compared to scenarios 1 and b) station 02 2. In relation to the lower precipitation rates scenario 1 presented values below 200 mm in Based on the average precipitation projections 70% of the analyzed period. For station 2, the of the hydrographic basin where the maximum precipitation presented values Machadinho HPP is located, it was observed that ranging from 600 to 900 mm around 5% of the the highest values of precipitation are found in time. the western half of the basin, fluctuating around 200 mm for scenario 1 (Figure 5a) . Scenario 2 (Figure 5b) presented a precipitation projection around 238 mm and an increment around 64 mm for scenario 3 (Figure 5c), in relation to the first scenario analyzed, thus verifying a tendency in the increase of precipitation For the three scenarios in the Hydrographic Region of the Machadinho Hydroelectric Power Plant. a) b) Figure 3. Permanence curve of precipitation projections for scenario 1 (blue line); Scenario 2 (red line); Scenario 3 (green line): a) Post 1 and b) Post 2 Figure 4 shows the positive anomalies in the two stations analyzed indicating a significant increase of the precipitation, mainly for the spring period, with an increase of around 200 mm, for the third scenario. Summer was the Francisco, Pereira; Elison Eduardo, Bierhals; José Leandro, Néris; Matheus, Rippel; Claudinéia, Brazil; Luciane, Salvi; Nei, Marçal 64 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY URBAN AFFAIRS, 1(3), 62-65 / 2017 References Ivanilto,A.(2003). Previsão de vazão em tempo real no Rio Uruguai com base na previsão meteorológica. Dissertação de Mestrado. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Grimm, I. J. (2016). Mudanças Climáticas e Turismo: estratégias de adaptação e mitigação. Tese de Doutorado, Pós- graduação em Meio Ambiente e Desenvolvimento da Universidade Federal do Paraná. Curitiba, 248. a) Moraes,F.(2013). Entenda como são feitos os relatórios do IPCC. Disponível em: <http://www.oeco.org.br/dicionario- ambiental/27621-entenda-como-sao-feitos- os-relatorios-do-ipcc/>. Acesso em: 06 maio 2016. Nimer, E. (1989) Climatologia do Brasil.(2 nd edition). Rio de Janeiro: IBGE. Schork, G.,Hermes-Silva, S., Beux, L. F., Zaniboni- Filho, E., Nuñer, A. P. O. (2012). Diagnóstico da pesca artesanal na usina hidrelétrica de b) Machadinho, alto rio Uruguai – Brasil. Bol. Inst. Pesca, São Paulo, 38(2),97 –108. Silveira,S.S., Souza Filho, F., Martins, E. S., Oliveira, J., Costa, Alexandre, Nobrega, M., Souza, S. A. (2011). Climate change in the São Francisco river basin: analysis of precipitation and temperature. RBRH, 21, 416 – 428. Porto Alegre abr. /jun. 2016. Van Vuuren, D. P., Edmonsds, J., Kainuma, M., Riahi, K., Thomsonm, A., Hibbard, K., Hurtt, G. c) C., Kram T., Krey, V., Lamarque, J. F., Masui, T., Figure 5. Precipitation projections: a) Scenario 1 (2026 - 2050; Meinshausen, M., Nakicenovic, N., Smith, S. J., b) Scenario 2 (2051 - 2075); C) Scenario 3 (2076 - 2100). Rose, S. K. (2011). The representative concentration pathways: an overview. 5. Conclusion Climatic Change, 109, 5-31. The hydroelectric plants are in the first position in the Brazilian energy matrix, evidencing, therefore, the need to know the distribution of the pluviometric regime of the region. The model analyzed in this article presented a positive trend for precipitation in the period from 2026 to 2100, designing anomalies between 25 and 200 mm in each 24 - year period for the precipitation variable. A greater amplitude is observed in the precipitation of 2076-2100, indicating an increase in the occurrence of major precipitation events, mainly in the spring period, considering that the rains in the Machadinho HPP region are increasing in the scenarios analyzed, it is concluded That the level of the reservoir of the plant tends to increase, changing the pluviometric regime of the region. Francisco, Pereira; Elison Eduardo, Bierhals; José Leandro, Néris; Matheus, Rippel; Claudinéia, Brazil; Luciane, Salvi; Nei, Marçal 65