Green and thirsty energy!? Yunnan's (SW-China) aggressive hydropower development and the Water-Energy-Environment Nexus.

能源部门的转型和保障稳定的能源供应是当今全球社会面临的关键挑战之一。与德国不同，水电开发在许多国家都扮演着关键角色。特别是在亚洲，水电被视为最重要的可再生能源，正在迅速发展。进入新千年以来，中国已发展成为世界上最大的电力生产国和消费国，也是水电开发的最大推动者。关于这一主题的地理研究几乎完全集中在个别的、经常有争议的大型水坝上。但中国5万个水电站中有98.6%是小型项目。由于不同的分类系统，小型项目被定义为装机容量不超过50MW。虽然大型水坝的多重影响以及单个小水电项目的环境后果已经得到了很好的研究，但（小）水电梯级的累积影响仍然是一个重要的研究缺口，具有重要的政策意义。对于（子）集水区和多种相互作用（如电力消耗、生态等）的分析尤其如此。研究区域为云南省，地处全球生物多样性的两个热点地区。该省还以其高度的地理和民族多样性而闻名。云南已发展成为世界水电重点地区之一。该省是四个国际河流流域的一部分，成为新的快速水电开发的缩影，主要服务于遥远的电力市场。在云南境内，跨国伊洛瓦底江流域作为案例研究区域。它是世界上水坝密度最高的地区之一，几乎整个地区都受到小型和大型水电开发的影响。与之平行的特点是大量能源密集型产业（硅、铝等）发展速度快。该项目的总体目标是分析云南水电的快速发展与水-能源-环境关系的某些方面之间的权衡。“联系”方法在科学和政治领域越来越受欢迎，但从未在综合水电开发方面进行过分析。因此，我想为更好地理解复杂的相互作用做出贡献。我主要关注三个子目标：(I)基于水电发电、水电出口和地方/省级电力消费（重点是能源密集型产业）之间权衡的水-能源关系的时空分析；（ii）水环境关系：对累积的生物物理和生态影响进行定量和定性分析；（iii）扩展目前最好的关于中国独特水电开发的交互式网络信息图，并开发具有更多层/信息的新信息图（与华盛顿特区伍德罗·威尔逊中心合作）。

The transformation of the energy sector and safeguarding a stable energy supply is one of the crucial challenges of today's global societies. Unlike Germany, hydropower development, in many countries, plays a pivotal role. In particular in Asia, hydropower is seen as the most important renewable energy and is being developed rapidly. Since the new millennium China has been developed as the world's largest generator and consumer of power as well as the largest driver in hydropower development. The geographical research on that topic focuses almost exclusively on individual and often controversial large dams. But 98.6% of China's 50,000 hydropower stations are small projects. Due to a different classification system small projects are defined up to an installed capacity of 50MW. While the multiple implications of large dams and also the environmental consequences of singular small hydropower projects are well studied, cumulative impacts of (small) hydropower cascades are still a significant research gap with important policy implications. This is particularly true with regard to (sub-)catchments and an analysis of multiple interactions (e.g. power consumption, ecology, etc.). Study region is the province of Yunnan which lies within two hotspots of global biodiversity. The province is also known for its high geo and ethnic diversity. Yunnan has been developing as one of the world's key regions for hydropower generation. The province, part of four international river basins, became an epitome of a new fast-paced hydropower development which primarily serves long distant electricity markets. Within Yunnan the transnational Irrawaddy catchment serves as case study area. It has one of the highest dam densities worldwide and almost the entire region is affected by small and large scale hydropower development. Parallel it is characterized by a fast-paced development of a large number of energy-intensive industries (silicon, aluminum, etc.). The overall goal of the project is an analysis of trade-offs between Yunnan's rapid hydropower development and selected aspects of the water-energy-environment nexus. The nexus approach is gaining popularity in science and politics, but has never been analyzed in relation to a comprehensive hydropower development. Therefore I want to make a contribution for a better understanding of the complex interactions. I focus on three sub-goals: (i) spatio-temporal analysis of the water-energy nexus based on the trade-offs between (hydro-)power generation, (hydro-)power exports and local/provincial power consumption (focus energy intensive industries); (ii) water-environment nexus: quantitative and qualitative analysis of cumulative biophysical and ecological implications, and (iii) to expand the currently best interactive web-based infographic of China's unique hydropower development and to develop a new infographic with more layers/information (in cooperation with Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC).