Displaying items by tag: reservoir
The Revelator: 10 ways targeted dam removals can help solve the climate change dilemma
Alewives returned by the millions after the Edwards and Ft. Halifax dams were removed in Maine. John Burrows/ASF via The Revelator
By providing both mitigation and adaption, dam removal can lower greenhouse gas emissions and restore carbon sinks.
This article was originally published in The Revelator. Gary Wockner
As the climate crisis escalates, a huge amount of attention and money is being focused on climate solutions.
These can be divided into two categories: solutions that pursue “mitigation,” which lowers greenhouse gas emissions, and those that pursue methods to adapt to climate impacts to increase human and ecological resiliency.
Dams, of course, create enormous environmental harms, many of which have already been described in scientific literature. Equally well documented is the fact that removing dams can restore seriously damaged ecosystems. But missing from almost every climate-solution story and study is how dam removal can be key for both mitigation and adaptation.
Here are 10 reasons how dam removal fights climate change.
- climate action
- dam removal
- the revelator
- gary wockner
- greenhouse gas emission
- methane emission
- natural flow of the river
- river plume
- carbon sink
- reservoir
- biodiversity
- sediment transport
- fish population dynamic
- water supply
- reservoir evaporation
- climate resilience
- heat island
- forest cooling effect
- river cooling effect
- climate crisis
- lake mead water level
- colorado river water restriction
Zoo researchers raising hell(benders) in Chattanooga
The Chattanooga Zoo will soon open an exhibit to hellbenders, such as the one seen here in a tank at the zoo. Courtesy Chattanooga Zoo
New hellbender exhibit at Chattanooga Zoo will serve as a hub for cooperative research
Thanks to grants from two generous organizations, some oft-elusive hellbenders have a new home at the Chattanooga Zoo. The Hiwassee Education and Research Facility is nearly complete, and it features hellbender exhibits and a classroom. The exhibit includes juvenile hellbenders hatched from eggs collected from the Duck River in central Tennessee in 2015.
The zoo is also fabricating a stream environment exhibit that will house nine larger sub-adult hellbenders, each about 10 years old and 14.5 inches long. Visitors can observe hellbenders feeding in the completed exhibit, but it will be open only during limited hours. After the project’s completion, the zoo plans to partner with researchers who hope to learn more about hellbenders.
“The Chattanooga Zoo is thrilled at the introduction of its new Hiwassee Hellbender Research Facility,” zoo officials said in a statement to Hellbender Press.
“We believe that this new facility will open rare opportunities for guests to be educated on this otherwise elusive native species, and that the project would lead to important strides made in hellbender research.
“From all of this, our hope is for more conservation efforts made in our local waterways, also known as the eastern hellbender’s home.”
- chattanooga zoo
- hellbender
- threat
- hellbender research
- where to see hellbender
- hiwassee education and research facility
- public land
- zoo
- native species
- conservation
- waterway
- photosensitive
- stream
- habitat fragmentation
- salamander
- biodiversity
- dam
- reservoir
- agriculture
- siltation
- endangered species act
- research