The role of cloud forests in maintaining hydropower performance

Cloud forests maximize water inflows to dams and mitigate significant sediment inputs to reservoirs. A method that uses advanced eco-hydrological models coupled with a dam operational model, driven by water releases, to determine the role of cloud forests in helping to maintain hydropower performance in tropical dams is described. Results from a case study using the Calima dam system, Valle del Cauca, Colombia, illustrate that protection of critical cloud forest areas, referred to as ‘water hotspots’, can prevent almost 87 per cent of the impacts of widespread deforestation on dam performance.