Center of expertise on hydropower impacts on fish and fish habitat - CHIF

Centre d'expertise sur l'hydroélectricité et ses impacts sur le poisson et l'habitat du poisson - CHIP

Overview

Located at the Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences in Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario), CHIF is a national center of expertise within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. It was created to coordinate the department's research activities on hydroelectricity and its impact on fish and fish habitat and to promote collaboration among scientists, managers and the industry in Canada.

Mandate

Fisheries and Oceans Canada's (DFO) Science sector has created several Centers of Expertise, including the Center of expertise on Hydropower Impacts on Fish and fish habitat (CHIF). The federal government and DFO in particular wish to promote the sustainable development of our resources, including hydraulic assets. Canadian hydropower companies share DFO's commitment to ensure resource usage while preserving healthy and productive habitats for future generations. Together they recognize that there is a need to identify adequate solutions to the questions raised by the industry's operations.

These common interests will lead to new partnerships between DFO managers, hydroelectricity companies and the scientific community including scientists from various federal and provincial departments, from the private sector and from academia. DFO relies on CHIF to coordinate and manage its participation in research activities related to hydropower impacts on fish and fish habitat.

Download CHIF's research plan [PDF format, 523 KB]

waterfall

Research Themes

Mesure

CHIF is interested in several aspects of research related to the impacts of hydro development on fish and fish habitat. Theses can be summarized by three major themes:

  • Reservoir construction and management
  • Fish passage at and near hydro facilities
  • River flow modifications

Although hydro-related research is traditionally oriented towards freshwater habitats, CHIF's research also focuses on marine and estuarine environments. This includes work on the effects of freshwater runoff from tributaries on coastal and marine biological productivity.

Overview of HydroNet

Currently, CHIF's main partner for freshwater research is NSERC's HydroNet. NSERC's HydroNet is a collaborative national five-year research program initiated in 2010 with academic, government and industry partners. The main goal of HydroNet is to improve the understanding of the effects of hydropower operations on aquatic ecosystems, and to provide scientifically defensible and transparent tools to improve the decision-making process associated with hydropower operations. Multiple projects are imbedded under three themes:

  1. Ecosystemic analysis of productive capacity of fish habitats (PCFH) in rivers
  2. Mesoscale modeling of the productive capacity of fish habitats in lakes and reservoirs
  3. Predicting the entrainment risk of fish in hydropower reservoirs relative to generation operations by combining behavioural ecology and hydraulic engineering

Biological, physical, and chemical drivers of PCFH are being examined under Theme 1 with the goal of identifying the proper metrics and biological coverage to adequately represent fish production rate (and in doing so develop reliable habitat quality models). Questions pertaining to the metrics (e.g. CPUE, fish density or fish biomass) and spatial coverage (i.e. scale and mosaic of habitat patches) necessary to adequately estimate PCFH are covered in Theme 2. Theme 3 is designed to implement coordinated hydraulic (physical model testing, CFD modeling and field measurements) and biological components linked by three critical objectives across a range of hydropower facilities, with synthesis aimed at implementing strategies to actively reduce entrainment risks. The knowledge generated by HydroNet is essential to balance the competing demands for limited water resources and to ensure that hydropower is sustainable, maintains healthy aquatic ecosystems and a vibrant Canadian economy. For more information please see the NSERC's HydroNet Website (www.hydronet.umontreal.ca).

Research Team

Sectretariate:

Karen Smokorowski, PhD Karen.Smokorowski@dfo-mpo.gc.ca CHIF Director
Evan Timusk, MSc Evan.Timusk@dfo-mpo.gc.ca CHIF Coordinator

DFO Representatives on the Steering Committee:

Mr. Keith Clarke (North Atlantic Fisheries Center, Newfoundland & Labrador) clarkekd@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Dr. Robert Randall (GLLFAS, Central & Arctic) Robert.Randall@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Dr. Mike Bradford ( DFO Pacific), Mike.Bradford@dfo-mpo.gc.ca  

Current Activities

CHIF's five-year research plan was completed and distributed to its partners. The plan is incorporated in the Science sector five-year research plan The major orientations were discussed at a workshop that was held in November 2007, jointly organized by DFO and Carleton University and jointly funded by CHIF and NSERC. This workshop rallied stakeholders from the Department, universities and the hydropower industry, and ultimately led to the development of NSERC's HydroNet – CHIF's current primary research partner.

Several projects are underway and expected to be completed as early as 2011, including:

Manic 2 Rivière

  • The design and construction of the Canadian Fishway Inventory database.

  • The development of ecosystem models to improve the design of an ecosystem monitoring program for Manitoba reservoirs.

  • The establishment of an inventory of obstructions to eel passage and a decision support tool concerning dams and habitat gain projects for the American eel.

  • Influence of Riverine Inputs on the Trophodynamics of the Lake Melville Estuary.

  • Quantification of natural freshwater flows in the St. Lawrence watershed in natural and controlled situations.

CHIF supported six separate research projects in 2011-2012.  The projects are:

  1. Thermal aspects of fish entrainment risk in Kinbasket reservoir (Mr. Patterson, DFO; Dr. Cooke, Carleton U; Dr. Power, U of Waterloo; Dr. Zhu, U of Alberta; Dr. Leake, BC Hydro)

    Directly linked to the HydroNet CRD project by providing scientific support and equipment, this project will determine how reservoir thermal properties vary seasonally and with respect to hydropower operations to influence entrainment risk for a variety of key fish species.

  2. Longitudinal and lateral responses in riverine communities to altered seasonal flow regimes (Mr. Clarke, Mr. Dempson, Dr. Smokorowski and Dr. Randall, DFO; Dr. Cunjak, CRI-UNB; Dr. Power, U of Waterloo; Mr. Steele, Brookfield Power; Mr. Sellars, Nalcor Energy)

    This project will assess the impact of the loss of connectivity among habitats, both longitudinal and lateral, by focusing on ecological process and function, and by quantifying linkages among abiotic factors and associated biotic responses (primary producers, invertebrate prey, and fishes).

  3. Fish behaviour in relation to trash racks (Dr. Enders, DFO; Dr. Clark, U of Manitoba)

    This project will evaluate the performance of trashrack designs from both a hydraulic and biological point of view, analyze the behavioural response of fish approaching trashracks in flume experiments, and monitor entrainment and impingement of fish on the trashracks at a hydro dam.

  4. Evaluating changes in productive capacity of mountain streams as a result of flow diversions (Dr. Bradford, DFO; Mr. Turner, Simon Fraser U).

    This project will establish the underpinnings of a scientifically defensible approach to evaluating changes in productive capacity of small streams by examining the sensitivity of predictions of optimal flows to the assumptions of a BC Instream Flow Model and levels of sampling intensity. It will also examine alternative metrics for flow-habitat relations.

  5. Water temperature dynamics downstream of reservoirs (Maritimes, Quebec, BC, Alberta). (Dr. Caissie, DFO Gulf; Dr. André St-Hilaire, INRS ETE, Université du Quebec).

    This project is highly integrated with the HydroNet project testing the effects of dams on the thermal regime of rivers. The project will monitor regulated and unregulated HydroNet rivers to assess the degree of thermal modification, study spatial variability of thermal conditions and define thermal indices to characterize variability, identify important meteorological and streamflow characteristics that can predict the influence in extreme conditions, and will develop a presence/absence model for a juvenile salmonid.

Publications

Anderson, M. R. 2011. Duration and extent of elevated mercury levels in downstream fish following reservoir creation. River Syst. Vol. 19/2, in press

Bédard, M. C. 1, Proulx, S. 1, Cairns, D.2 and J.-D. Dutil1 (unpublished report – under revision). A Method for the classification and mapping of Sheltered and Semi-exposed habitats in estuarine and coastal waters -Preliminary step in the determination of potential marine eel habitat zones in the Estuary and the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  

Benyahya, L, A. Daigle, D. Caissie, D. Beveridge and A. St-Hilaire. 2009. Caractérisation du régime naturel du débit des bassins versants de l'Est du Canada. INRS-ETE, rapport R1057, 88 pages.

Binder, T.R., S.J. Cooke, K. Clarke, C. Katopodis, and K. Smokorowski.  2009.  Inventory of Fish Passage Facilities at Migration Barriers in Canada: Project Conception Report.  Fish Ecology and Conservation Physiology Laboratory Research Report Series 09-02, Carleton University, Ottawa.

Caissie, D. and S. Robichaud. 2009. Towards a better understanding of the natural flow regimes and streamflow characteristics of rivers of the Maritime Provinces. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 2843: viii + 53p.

Colotelo, A.H., S.J. Cooke, and K.E. Smokorowski. 2009. Application of forensic techniques to enhance fish conservation and management: Injury detection using presumptive tests for blood. Endangered Species Research 9:169-178 

Cooke, S.J., and C.D. Suski. 2008. Ecological restoration and physiology: An overdue integration. BioScience 58: 957-968.

Daigle, A., A. St-Hilaire, D. Beveridge, D. Caissie, L. Benyahya. 2009. Multivariate analysis of low flow regimes in eastern Canadian rivers. Hydrological Sciences Journal (accepted Oct 2010).

de Kerckhove, D.T., Smokorowski, K.E., and Randall, R.G. 2008. Primer on Fish Habitat Models. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 2817: iv + 58 p.

Drouin, H. 2009. Inventaire des obstacles naturels et anthropiques pouvant entraver la montaison de l'anguille d'Amérique (Anguilla rostrata) dans le bassin versant de la rivière Rimouski. Rapport technique du Conseil de bassin de la rivière Rimouski, Rimouski. 22 pages et annexes.

Dutil, J.-D., P. Dumont, et al. 2009. Glass eel migration and recruitment in the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence, Journal of Fish Biology. 74: 1970-1984.

Gabriel, C.M., Clarke, K.D., and Campbell, C.E. 2009. Invertebrate communities in compensation creek, a man-made stream in boreal Newfoundland: the influence of large woody debris. River Research and Applications. DOI: 10.1002/rra.1295.

Hasler, C.T., L.B. Pon, D.W. Roscoe, B. Mossop, D.A. Patterson, S.G. Hinch, and S.J. Cooke. 2009.  Expanding the "toolbox" for studying the biological responses of individual fish to hydropower infrastructure and operating strategies. Environmental Reviews 17:179-197.

ICES, 2009. Report of the Study Group on Anguillid Eels in Saline Waters (SGAESAW), 16-18 March 2009, Sackville, Canada and 1-3 September, 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden. ICES Council Meeting documents. CM 2009/DFC 06: 183 pages.

Lambert, P., G. Verreault, B. Lévesque, V. Tremblay, J.-D. Dutil et P. Dumont. 2010. Détermination de l'impact des barrages sur l'accès de l'anguille d'Amérique aux habitats d'eau douce et établissement de priorité pour des gains en habitat. 47 pages (unpublished report – under revision).

MacGregor, R., J. M. Casselman, et al. 2009. Natural heritage, anthropogenic impacts, and biopolitical issues related to the status and sustainable management of American eel: a retrospective analysis and management perspective at the population level. in A. J. Haro, K. L. Smith, R. A. Rulifson, C. M. Moffitt, R. J. Klauda, M. J. Dadswell, R. A. Cunjak, J. E. Cooper, K. L. Beal, and T. S. Avery, editors. Challenges for diadromous fishes in a dynamic global environment. American Fisheries Society, Bethesda, Maryland. American Fisheries Society Symposium. 69: 713-739.

Ringuette, M. 2007. Influence des débits d'eau douce sur les écosystèmes estuariens et marins. Unpublished CHIF report. 

Senneville, S., Lefaivre, D. 2010. Quantification des débits naturels d'eau douce dans le bassin du Saint-Laurent. Institut des Sciences de la Mer, Université du Québec à Rimouski, janvier 2010, 48 p.

Smokorowski, K.E., and Derbowka, D. 2008. Methods of measuring productive capacity in Canada: Summaries for review at a national workshop, October 15-16, 2007. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 2815: iv + 158p.

Smokorowski, K.E., and Dutil, J.D. 2008. Proceedings of the Workshop to Compare Methods to Quantify the Productive Capacity of Fish Habitat Impacted by Hydro Operations. Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Proceedings Series 2008/002. (32 p.)

St-Hilaire, A. A. Daigle, D. Beveridge, D. Caissie and L. Benyahya. 2009. Analyse multivariée des indices d'altération hydrologique de l'Est du Canada, INRS-ETE, rapport R1058, 43 pages.

Tremblay, V. 2009. Projets de recherche complémentaire pour la réalisation du modèle d'approximation du gain de potentiel reproducteur chez l'anguille pour une hiérachisation des gains d'habitats. Rapport de fin de contrat, Aecom Tecsult, 53 pages.

Tremblay, V., Cossette, C., Dutil, J.-D., Verreault G., and Dumont P. 2011. Assessment of upstream and downstream passability for eel at dams. Can. Tech. Rep. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 2912: x + 73 p.

DFO

HydroNet

Great Lakes Laboratory for Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences

Oceans, Habitat and Species at Risk

Provincial Government Partners

Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources

Québec Ministère des Ressources naturelles et de la faune

Academic Partners

University of Waterloo

University of Montreal

Carleton University

University of New Brunswick

McGill University

University of Lethbridge

University of Alberta

Industry

Brookfield Renewable Power

BC Hydro

Nalcor Energy

Manitoba Hydro

Contact

CHIF is a decentralized center of expertise that operates within DFO's Science sector. CHIF heads a broad network of collaborators within DFO, in other federal and provincial departments and in the hydroelectricity industry. CHIF works in partnership with various Canadian companies and their associations. CHIF is dedicated to scientific research and has no regulatory role in Canada.