Published
2023-06-20

How to Cite

Andrade, J., & Olaya, A. (2023). Environmental impacts associated with hydroelectric plants in Colombia. Revista De Investigación Agraria Y Ambiental, 14(2), 217-250. https://doi.org/10.22490/21456453.6074
Metrics
Metrics Loading ...

Environmental impacts associated with hydroelectric plants in Colombia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.22490/21456453.6074
Section
Área Ambiental
Juan Andrade Universidad Surcolombiana
Alfredo Olaya Universidad Surcolombiana

Contextualization: hydroelectric plants are one of the main sources of electricity generation in the world. Although its construction in North America and Europe began in the middle of the 20th century, in continents such as America, Asia and Africa its wave of expansion began in the year 2000, stimulated by the accelerated growth of emerging economies such as Brazil, Colombia, China, South Africa and India, among others, in addition to the demographic growth experienced during the last 10 years. It is estimated that the world has more than 40,000 large hydroelectric plants, with Asia being the continent with the largest number of dams, followed by South America.

Knowledge gap: there is currently no impact inventory to identify the positive and negative effects caused by the construction and operation of hydroelectric plants in the country, since there is no comprehensive study that consolidates the impacts generated by hydroelectric plants in Colombia; however, there are investigations that identify impacts of hydroelectric plants in isolated cases.

Purpose: classify the environmental impacts [positive and negative] generated by the presence of hydroelectric plants in Colombia.

Methodology: for the development of the research, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses [PRISMA] methodology was used as a guide. In this regard, the systematic review included the stages of identification, filtration, selection, and inclusion of documents from Scopus for international specialized literature, Google Scholar for national scientific literature [in other databases than Scopus] and university institutional repositories for gray literature.

Results   and   conclusions: an inventory and classification of the biotic, abiotic [physical] and socioeconomic impacts generated by the construction and operation of hydroelectric plants in Colombia registered in the scientific literature [research articles] and gray literature [undergraduate, master's, and doctorates theses] was carried out. Subsequently, it was possible to establish that there are diverse affectations caused by hydroelectric projects in the country, being predominant those of socioeconomic nature.