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Further, the Forum and resulting report were conducted using five “Topic Area Groups,” or TAGs. These same five TAGs are the basis for the organization of this report. The TAGs are:
TAG 1 - Performance and Production
TAG 2 - Environmental Issues
TAG 3 - Innovative Operations & Maintenance (O&M)
TAG 4 - Multi-Purpose Values
TAG 5 - Human Resource Issues
These five topic areas were adjudged by the forum steering committee to be inclusive of—and to adequately categorize—the topics needing attention with respect to hydro-related R&D.
Participants in the 2001 Forum consisted of individuals representing hydropower operations, environmental, research, and policy-oriented organizations. During the forum, each individual worked in one of the five topic area groups.
Each group aimed to identify specific research and development projects that could help solve problems or meet needs in the next five to ten years. At the conclusion of the forum, each group’s members brought forward the projects that they felt were most important or urgent in their respective topic areas. Then, all forum participants ranked the value of these top recommended projects.
Much of the forum’s prospective value is captured in the descriptions of 91 research propositions. Identified as “RDIDs” in individual Topic Area Group (TAG) categories (and provided in Sections 3 through 7 of the full report), these individual topics can serve as a valuable resource for planning future R&D efforts.
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