Skagerak runs extensive environmental activities related to watercourses and fish with a view to achieving sustainable water management.

Hydroelectric power has an environmental impact

Hydroelectric power is a renewable resource that poses a very small threat to the environment, but utilising this resource nonetheless comes at a cost. The water flow in many rivers and watercourses is reduced, which naturally has an impact on the natural environment.

This is a price that society has chosen to invest in to secure the significant benefits provided by the production of electricity. In other words, society at large has accepted the environmental cost in order to utilise the opportunities for environmentally-friendly renewable power production.

Large-scale and small-scale environmental measures

Examples of environmental measures are operating the power plants in a manner adapted to the environment, supplementing of suitable spawning and growth substrate, fish stocking, facilitation of upstream and downstream fish migration, improvement of weirs and fish migration barriers. The overall goal is to achieve sustainable and self-recruiting fish stocks.

Sustainable water management is about prioritising the implementation of small-scale and large-scale positive environmental measures in and around our watercourse facilities.