CSF HydroCalculator Tool

CivicActions worked with the Conservation Strategy Fund to build an online geo-economic HydroCalculator tool that empowers citizens, conservationists and scientists worldwide to make informed judgments about the effectiveness of proposed and existing hydro-electric power stations and understand and evaluate better and more accurately projects with excessive environmental, social or economic costs or low energy potential.



The HydroCalculator Tool is comparable to the carbon-footprint tools commonly available. It allows users to input the financial costs from which the Net Present Value (NPV), and cost per kilowatt-hour are calculated and returned. The HCT also helps users identify environmental and social costs using indicators developed by George Ledec of the World Bank.



The HydroCalculator Tool empowers organizations and individuals to evaluate the net economic benefit of projects with the most economical investment of their money and time.

Conservation Strategy Fund’s decade of work in Belize, Mexico, Brazil, Panama and Bolivia has shown that such an approach enables conservationists to achieve impressive conservation results and save their country's money at the same time by steering investments away from unsound hydro-electric power proposals.


The tool formally launched in August 2009 as part of Conservation Strategy Fund's new website and is available in English, Spanish and Portguese.

Future enhancements to the HydroCalculator Tool will include a set of mapping and geographic features that will enable it to accurately calculate detailed geographic data, such as the surface area, volume and vegetation type from a few simple inputs; the dam location and elevation.