Study On Regional Hydropower Resources Sustainable Development Evaluation Based On AHP And TOPSIS Method

Southwest China is rich in water resources, and many hydropower projects are duringconstruction still now. The construction of the hydropower projects would have someadverse effects on the regional environment inevitably. It has practical significance to findsome measures to reduce such adverse effects from the macroeconomic policy-makinglevel, to evaluate quantitatively the reasonability of the development of hydropowerresources, and to achieve regional sustainable development. The middle reaches of YalongRiver, which was a typical region of hydropower development, was chosen as researchobject. A set of indicators were established for evaluating the sustainable developmentability of the region of hydropower development, based on the characteristics ofsustainable development, i.e. the development trend, coordination and fairness. Thehydropower development, environmental protection and regional socio-economicdevelopment were all taken into consideration in the proposed evaluation indicator system.Based on the AHP and TOPSIS method, the sustainable use of hydropower resources wasreasonably quantified and evaluated by using the indicators in a uniform scale. Theproposed indicator system and method was applicated in a typical project in the middlereaches of the Yalong River. The analysis results validated the effectiveness of the indicatorsystem, which can quantify the sustainability of development of hydropower resources andprovide the basis for decision-making and environmental protection. The mainachievements of the thesis include:(1) From the point of view of systems analysis, the development of the region ofdeveloping hydropower resources was regarded as a composite system composed ofhydropower resource development subsystem, environment protection subsystem andregional socio-economic subsystem. The structure, function and characteristics of thesystem and subsystems were studied and revealed. It was the basis for the establishment ofhydropower resources development and the corresponding regional sustainabledevelopment indicators system.(2) Based on the sustainable development theory and the characteristics of hydropowersustainable development, an indicator system was established including six aspects of thedeposit, utility, freedom, security, adaptability, coexistence index system. The indicator system can reflect the needs of the spirit, society, life and ecology.(3) A new method of evaluating sustainable development of regional water resourceswas proposed combining the AHP and TOPSIS method. In the new method, the AHPmethod was used to calculate the weights of the different indicators, while the TOPSISmethod was used to unify the different indicators to an equal scale and to evaluatecomprehensively the sustainable use of the hydropower resources.(4) The ability of sustainable development of a project of large reservoir in the middlereaches of Yalong River was evaluated using the proposed indicators and method. Theresults show that the development of hydropower resources in the region was sustainable,but much more emphasis was put on the economic efficiency, and thus the whole systemwas developed unbalanced.