Theme-6-3-Low flow mini hydro power plants.

Abstract

This paper is a contribution of a multidisciplinary research and suggests an estimation method of low flows, to individuate the best places of minihydro plants. In fact the low flows of a river define the period of low productivity and they qualify the technical and economic feasibility of minihydro plants. Particularly the localization of these plants needs large territorial investigation and for this purpose it is necessary to evaluate the hydrological droughts for ungaged rivers. The research suggests an estimation methodology of low flow based on the geomorphological and hydrological characteristics of a given basin, which can be evaluated by hydrogeological thematic maps. The method required the preliminary analysis of 53 gauged basins of a region and the definition of a functional relationship between low flow (dependent variable) and hydro-geomorphological parameters (independent variables).