• Restore downstream ecosystems and human livelihoods;
• Continue to protect the downstream communities from the larger flood events that would jeopardize human settlements while accommodating seasonal inundation of farmlands;
• Increase the total electric power output of the dams, while altering the generating schedule;
• Increase the reliability of water supply for hydropower generation; and
• Reduce the incidence of water borne disease vectors.  

Once completed (in approx. 30 months), the Akosombo and Kpong dam project will showcase the project results and demonstrate the efficacy of regional grid integration to enable rescheduling of the operations of major hydropower dams around the world.  Further project updates, reports and other publications will be posted on a dedicated project website [insert URL, if known] and announced on NHI's GDRI website -(Global Dam Re-Operation). 

NHI and the Glenn Colusa Irrigation District (GCID) have released a major report on the potential benefits from changing the operations of the two largest reservoirs in California so that they can capture a larger fraction of the annual rainfall and snowmelt.   These are Shasta reservoir, the largest in the Federal Central Valley Project (CVP), and Oroville reservoir, the only water storage facility for the State Water Project.  The study shows that storage capacity could be increased in these reservoirs by re-operating them to release additional water for irrigation and for improved environmental flows for salmon.  To eliminate the risk that the reservoirs will not refill during the following winter, the study found that drawing upon the groundwater aquifers in the Sacramento Valley to supplement the deliveries from the reservoirs would be an effective mechanism that would only be needed in 10-15% of  years,  and that the groundwater levels would have rebounded during the following precipitation season, or soon thereafter.

However, this reoperation concept is constrained at times by the need to release water from the reservoirs for temperature control for salmonids.  In effect, the ability to generate one kind of environmental benefits (ecological flows) is constrained by existing operational requirements for another kind of environmental benefits (temperature control). This tradeoff between different environmental water uses points to the need for comprehensive, holistic approaches to environmental water management.