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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Damming river water impacts fish diversity -Aathira Perinchery

Damming river water impacts fish diversity -Aathira Perinchery

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published Published on Jun 25, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 25, 2017
-The Hindu

Barrier-free tributaries flowing in can mitigate the effect, factoring in high-impact projects

A new study has found that dams and other barriers across rivers in the Western Ghats do affect fish species and their recovery downstream. However, barrier-free tributaries that drain in to these rivers can help fish recover even in dammed stretches; protecting such tributaries could be crucial to maintaining fish diversity in the Western Ghats.

The Western Ghats is home to 290 freshwater fish species, more than half of which are endemic. While other studies have shown that river barriers such as barrages and dams can affect fish diversity, there is no hard evidence to prove this in the Western Ghats.

To test if barriers across a 72-km stretch of Karnataka's Malaprabha River in the central Western Ghats could affect fish diversity, scientists from the Asoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) compared fish diversity both upstream and downstream of barriers.

Endemic species

Studies in the upstream, barrier-free stretches confirmed the presence of 28 fish species, including the Deccan mahseer, an endemic carp. However, this number dipped immediately downstream of barriers; fish recovery was low here. But it picked up further downstream, as distance from the barrier increased. The scientists also noticed that the more the number of barriers upstream, the more diminished was fish recovery downstream.

But there was a silver lining: as long as barrier-free tributaries merged with the Malaprabha River, fish — including endemics — recovered well, even in dammed stretches of the river. These tributaries, along with other environmental factors, increased dissolved oxygen content and reduced the hardness of water (alkalinity) in the Malaprabha, helping fish recover better. Fish diversity recovered to the highest level after a distance of 2 km downstream of barriers.

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The Hindu, 24 June, 2017, http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/damming-river-water-impacts-fish-diversity/article19140868.ece?homepage=true


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