Session A1- A conceptual model for designing bypass fishways for dams on neotoropcial rivers
Location
UMass Amherst
Start Date
27-6-2011 11:00 AM
End Date
27-6-2011 11:20 AM
Description
Most dams planned for construction on large Neotropical rivers must have fishways if the migratory fish resources are to conserved. In general, these warm productive rivers have many migratory fish species, great fish abundance, and almost nothing is known about fish behavior or swimming ability. To pass fish around dams 30 m high in these rivers, some type of bypass will often be the best choice. However, an innovation bypass design is required due to the need for combining energy dissipation within the bypass with sufficient attraction water for surface-and bottom-oriented fishes (characiformes and Siluriformes are the dominant orders of fish in the Neotropics). This is the situation at two new 3 GW dams (20-25 m head) being built in Brazil on the Madeira River, a tributary of the middle Amazon River, where there are about 700 fish species and great fish abundance. A conceptual model using a scientific approach with several key phases leading to selection of the structure-flow design for a channel bypass (CB) follows: (1) form a Fish Passage Team composed of one or more hydraulic engineers and fish behaviorists with fish passage experience, (2) use small-scale hydraulic models to identify potential structure-flow design with low turbulence and good energy dissipation, (3) scale-up the best structure-flow designs in a large flume and measure their hydraulics, (4) test fish in each design using modern technology to observe fish passage success, swimming speed, and behavior of target species, and (5) identify the best structure-flow CB design based on data from design hyrdaulics and fish performance. This five-step conceptual model identifies the CB design that best passes local fishes and reduces the probability for failure of a fishway design.
Session A1- A conceptual model for designing bypass fishways for dams on neotoropcial rivers
UMass Amherst
Most dams planned for construction on large Neotropical rivers must have fishways if the migratory fish resources are to conserved. In general, these warm productive rivers have many migratory fish species, great fish abundance, and almost nothing is known about fish behavior or swimming ability. To pass fish around dams 30 m high in these rivers, some type of bypass will often be the best choice. However, an innovation bypass design is required due to the need for combining energy dissipation within the bypass with sufficient attraction water for surface-and bottom-oriented fishes (characiformes and Siluriformes are the dominant orders of fish in the Neotropics). This is the situation at two new 3 GW dams (20-25 m head) being built in Brazil on the Madeira River, a tributary of the middle Amazon River, where there are about 700 fish species and great fish abundance. A conceptual model using a scientific approach with several key phases leading to selection of the structure-flow design for a channel bypass (CB) follows: (1) form a Fish Passage Team composed of one or more hydraulic engineers and fish behaviorists with fish passage experience, (2) use small-scale hydraulic models to identify potential structure-flow design with low turbulence and good energy dissipation, (3) scale-up the best structure-flow designs in a large flume and measure their hydraulics, (4) test fish in each design using modern technology to observe fish passage success, swimming speed, and behavior of target species, and (5) identify the best structure-flow CB design based on data from design hyrdaulics and fish performance. This five-step conceptual model identifies the CB design that best passes local fishes and reduces the probability for failure of a fishway design.
Comments
Boyd Kynard has been an Adjunct Professor, Environmental Conservation Department, since 1978. He obtained a PhD in Fisheries Biology from teh Univ. of Washington, Seattle, in 1972. He started the fisheries program at the Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, where he was an Asst. and Assoc. Prof. until 1978. His research was on international conservation of desert fishes. He joined the Univ. of Mass. in 1978 as Asst. Ldr. of the Maa. Coop. Fish Res. Unit (USFWS). He directed 25 graduate students at UMass in life history behavior of diadromous fish of fish passage at dams. 1n 1989, he joined the new S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Res. Center, Turners Falls, MA, as Section Leader of Fish Behavior. His research focused on American shad and sturgeon life history and fish passage until he retired from the USGS in 2007. He received the Dwight Webster Award of Merit (NE Div., AFS) and is a member of the following: Scientific Board, TNC, and the Executive Board, N. American Chapter, World Sturgeon Cons. Soc. He actively pursues research on migratory fishes and fish passage emphasis in China and Brazil, where damming of ricers impacts the last large runs of migratory fishes.