Research

Research > Outcomes

NSERC HydroNet will contribute to:

• the improvement of approaches to estimate and model physical drivers of the productive capacity of fish habitats;


• the definition of standardized protocols capable of estimating the productive capacity of fish habitats;


• the identification of the relative importance of chemical, physical, and biological drivers of the productive capacity of fish habitats, and of large-scale (ecosystemic) and small-scale (habitat patches) environmental conditions on this variable;


• the acquisition of new knowledge to assess and minimize the effect of hydropower on key biological processes (e.g. effect of flow modifications on egg survival, relationship between environmental conditions affected by hydropower and fish growth, effect of reservoir management on fish entrainment in turbines);


• the comparison of the productive capacity of fish habitats and its environmental determinants over a range of ecosystems (regulated and unregulated) for which PCFH must be estimated to assess the effect of hydropower on fish; and


• the development of modeling approaches that will facilitate the routine estimation of the effect of hydropower on the productive capacity of fish habitats.