National Information Collaboration on Ecohydraulics (NICE): Ecohydraulics of Sensitive Areas

Description

THIS IS A 2 PHASE APPROACH. SOIs DUE: 14 December 2023 FULL PROPOSAL DUE: 19 January 2024 Background There are many locks and dams, navigation channels, and increasingly beneficial sediment-use sites across the Mississippi watershed and throughout the United States. Interest is high in understanding navigation impacts on fisheries and how navigation infrastructure can be used to manage fisheries in the role of navigation. Currently, fisheries impacts are often not explicitly accounted for in lock and dam operations. For example, nearly all dams in the Mississippi Basin and southeastern United States are, by and large, not designed to accommodate fish passage for native fish. Moreover, many of these dams are now being viewed as possible components for control and management of aquatic nuisance species. Some native fishes are now protected under provisions of the Endangered Species Act further heightening interest in the possible influence of locks and dams on fish movement. A primary challenge of the proposed work is to develop strategies that allow fish movement past locks and dams while not impacting navigation operations. The National Information Collaboration for Ecohydraulics (NICE) has been established with the mission of applying ecohydraulic principles to navigation infrastructure at multiple scales and facilitating accurate engineering forecasts of fisheries outcomes based on research and development for multiple contexts. Program Description/Objective: This project aims to advance the management of navigation channel maintenance in environmentally sensitive locations through novel field studies, partnerships, and laboratory studies. The primary objective would be to improve maintenance procedures and expand locations or times of channel maintenance thus reducing impacts to commercial navigation, including increasing beneficial use while reducing fisheries impacts and concerns. In addition to locks and dams, there are miles of navigation channels vital to commercial navigation. Relating channel maintenance such as using hopper dredging to fisheries outcomes simultaneously is difficult for a variety of technical and logistical reasons making those studies rare. Studies that instrument navigation channels and produce multidimensional tracks in navigation channels and especially during narrowly timed navigation maintenance events are envisioned. Studies should include concurrent environmental data such as temperatures, depths, salinity, and hydraulics. Multiple species are needed to cover the range of potential behaviors. Other channel maintenance approaches such as cutter-head dredging and clamshell dredging face similar fisheries challenges and may be considered for additional studies. Anticipated field locations will be in the San Francisco Bay ecosystem. Public Benefit These studies will help ensure the preservation and protection of numerous threatened & endangered (T&E) and native fish species in the San Francisco Bay. The protection of these fish species has been determined to be of national significance due to their past population decline. In addition to T&E species, other aquatic species will also benefit from providing this hydrologic connectivity and thereby help maintain natural ecosystem trophic balances and biodiversity. Anticipated increases in public ecosystem goods and services from these environmental management decisions include aesthetic and economic value for present and future generations in areas such as recreational use, sports fishing, improved water quality, and naturally functioning ecosystems.

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