Chapter 6. Instream Uses: Navigation, Hydropower, Fishing, and Recreation
Turbines inside Hoover Dam. Note the staircase for scale. Each turbine weighs 700 tons and can generate 107 MW of power.
In this chapter, we turn to the four most significant instream uses of water: navigation, hydropower, fishing, and recreation, trying to understand both the historical arc of these uses and their current importance and impacts. We address questions such as these:
- How do societies use rivers for transportation, energy, food, and recreation?
- Are those uses compatible with maintaining healthy river ecosystems?
- Is water-based transportation still important to the US economy?
- Will increasing reliance on hydropower help mitigate climate change, or make us more vulnerable to it?
- Why are salmon and other iconic fish doing so badly?
A slideshow based on Chapter 6 (including all the figures and tables in the chapter) is available here and below.