Copernicus for Hydropower Flood Assessments
As renewable energy infrastructure grows around the world, advances are being made to strengthen the resilience of renewable energy infrastructure. The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, particularly floodings, poses a growing challenge for hydropower operations, threatening both energy yield and structural integrity. The Copernicus database contains data relevant to floods and other indicators including a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) which feed into flood risk evaluations and other planning tools. This EUSPA Proof-of-Concept (POC) explored solutions to strengthen the resilience of hydropower infrastructure together with Gruner Stucky and GECOSistema.
The Energy Challenge
Dams play a multifaceted role in infrastructure, with energy production being a key function. As climate patterns shift and extreme weather events become more frequent, ensuring that these structures remain safe, reliable and resilient is critical to maintaining their hydropower contributions to the energy sector. Dam engineers such as those at Gruner Stucky integrate climate and extreme weather risk assessments in the design of new dams and hydropower plants, as well as re-assess risks for existing dams which were built with potentially outdated possible extreme weather events in mind. Specifically, operators are interested in modelling extreme flood events, to ensure the discharge capacity (e.g. in m3/second) of the dam’s spillways is adequate to manage any sudden excess of water, ensuring the water can be safely conveyed downstream. In some cases, upgrades to existing spillways can be made, or entirely new spillways can be constructed, to ensure adequate spillway capacity. Additionally, when designing new dams in areas of the world that lack high-resolution data, space data can help dam designers to create flood maps for different dam overflow scenarios. The highest return period flood events (e.g., 1,000 years or more) are typically associated with spillway design, while lower return periods, ( e.g. 100 year) are more suited to flood management, using part of the reservoir volume to attenuate downstream contribution to peak flooding.
Solution powered by C3S and Copernicus DEM
Italy-based GECOSistema used the hydrology-related climate impact indicators provided as part of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), accessed through the climate data store, to generate hydrological insights for floods of different return periods in specific climate change scenarios. Specifically, the Copernicus data was used to compare the average daily discharge in m3/s of a flood event for the current climate scenario and the future RCP8.5 (“high emissions”) climate change scenario in the period 2071-2100.
Using their SaferPlaces platform, GECO Sistema generated flood map downstream of “Les Toules” dam in Switzerland powered by the Copernicus Digital Elevation Model. The SaferPlaces platform is a commercial Flood Risk Intelligence service born within the demonstrator Project “SaferPlaces” funded by the EIT CLIMATE KIC and further developed by GECOSistema. SaferPlaces allows easy integration of such data for quick scenario testing, comparisons, and preliminary flood impact assessments, helping to prioritize areas for detailed studies, while integrating local data.
Copernicus hydrology data, while limited to daily averages and to lower return time (e.g. 50 years), provides valuable preliminary comparisons for flood assessment. Its climate change projections, based on delta changes, are easy to apply but currently restricted to the EU.
About Copernicus Climate Impact Indicators and Copernicus DEM
The Copernicus climate impact indicators dataset provides water variables and indicators based on hydrological impact modelling. The dataset contains Essential Climate Variable (ECV) data in the form of daily mean river discharge and a set of climate impact indicators (CIIs) for both water quantity and quality and represent the current cutting-edge innovation in Europe for regional climate and hydrological modelling and indicator production.
Additionally, the Copernicus Digital Elevation Model is used for flood mapping and represents the surface of the Earth including buildings, infrastructure and vegetation, and is provided in 3 different instances: EEA-10, GLO-30 (used for this POC) and GLO-90.
Key Outcomes
This POC highlights how Copernicus space data enabled a solution that bolsters the hydropower site resilience and flood risk evaluations, particularly for large-scale projects spanning extensive areas or areas with moderate quality local data.
Copernicus hydrology data, though limited to daily averages, enables useful preliminary comparisons. Its climate change projections, based on delta changes, are easy to apply but currently EU-restricted. The ability to analyse sub-daily variations would be a significant improvement, enhancing precision in flood risk assessments.
The Copernicus DSM provides a solid first-step flood estimation, offering insights into dam influence when compared to high-resolution local DTMs.
Moving towards free access higher resolution data, distinguishing between terrain and surface elevation, would significatively enhance flood mapping accuracy. This remains a key area of improvement for Copernicus topographic data offerings, for any application related to flood risk assessment and mitigation.
SaferPlaces with Copernicus data enables cost-effective flood risk assessment for diverse stakeholders. Public authorities can enhance emergency planning, the energy sector can improve infrastructure resilience, and insurers can refine risk models—leveraging global data for smarter, data-driven decision-making.
Next Steps
There is high potential for similar applications in the sectors of renewable energy, public administration and other sectors interested in flood management. The potential benefits could be even more pronounced for regions outside of Europe, where variability in climate and hydrological systems can pose greater challenges. By leveraging EO data, applications like this one showcased in this EUSPA POC can support high level planning (such as the layout and concept of hydropower plants) and integrated project development at a larger scale.
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