Analysis of the hydraulic behavior of a vertical slot fishway in two slopes

ABSTRACT

Several fish transposition systems (MTP´s) have been employed to allow the fish upstream migration through river dams for spawning. The design of MTP´s of the type of vertical slot fishways requires not only the analysis of the pool hydraulic behavior to evaluate the velocity fields, the energy dissipation levels, and the Reynolds shear stress distributions, but also the study of biological characteristics of aquatic species impacted by the river dams. However, these parameters are not evaluated together, and some of them are valued at the average of the tank. This work deals with an analysis of the main hydraulic characteristics of a slot vertical fishway at two channel slopes, 6% and 12%. The hydraulic characteristic graphs obtained in this work show that a slope of 6% is preferable for the design of this kind of fishway, since the associated velocity magnitudes fits better to the ideal conditions for the safe fish passage. The slope of 12% creates restrictions in terms of the available area for fish passage due to power dissipation and shear stresses conditions.

Keywords:
Fishway; Hydraulic parameter; Vertical slot fishway; Channel slope