A team of HydroPASSAGE biologists and engineers have developed and collected 99 biological response models related to 31 species of fish to integrate into the project’s toolsets. A report on their findings was recently published on behalf of DOE.
The team used specialized equipment to develop biological response models for exposure to blade strike, rapid decompression, and fluid shear to determine what fish experience as they travel downstream through turbines and other hydropower structures. The models include American shad, Chinook salmon, and American eel, which have various predicted outcomes like injury or mortality.
The biological response models provide information that is critical to the design and operation of hydropower that promotes safe fish passage by predicting the likelihood that a fish will respond in a particular way to a stressor.
These models can and have been applied in several different cases, often using HBET and BioPA to evaluate fish passage through hydropower facilities, including specific applications such as turbine replacement, installation of new turbines, or changing operations of currently installed turbines.
As hydropower is continually developed to meet the needs of the electric grid, tools such as HBET and BioPA used with integrated biological response models will help develop technologies and strategies to avoid, minimize, mitigate, and manage environmental effects.
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