Otimização de caudais ecológicos em barragens hidroelétricas para promoção dos serviços de ecossistema associados à fauna piscícola

ECO.Dams aims to develop scientifically oriented recommendations, specifically developed in a Mediterranean and water-scarcity context, for greener and fish-friendly dam and flow regulation operations that can promote the value and sustainable exploitation of fish-related EG&, from biodiversity to socioeconomic perspectives. Standing on a partnership between a multidisciplinary and complementary team (Task 1), ECO.Dams will: i) establish flow-habitat-fish relationships and extrapolate them for different hydrologic conditions, considering current climate characteristics and predicted future climate alterations (Tasks 2-5), thus defining thresholds, optimal values and guidelines that will be transferred to dam managers (Task 6), to be used for the design and implementation of artificial discharges in regulated rivers that can promote fish-based socioeconomic, cultural and biodiversity EG&S. These objectives will help entities responsible for the management of natural resources when dealing with pending challenges and threats to the sustainable exploitation of their EG&S, while meeting international commitments and recommendations in terms of aquatic ecosystem restoration. ECO.Dams will go beyond the current state of the art regarding the management of regulated aquatic ecosystems, representing a breakthrough in this field of research, by including novel, innovative thinking, and boundary-pushing approaches: i) focus on Mediterranean ecosystems, where water scarcity is a challenge and multiple demands for this resource make it hard to efficiently combine all the needs through conventional management. ECO.Dams will compare different scenarios within this Mediterranean region (higher Atlantic influence – Lima, and a typical Mediterranean climate – Guadiana), increasing the level of representativeness and potential for replication of project outputs. ii) ECO.Dams settles in a multidisciplinary research team, plus specific consultancy, whose expertise in fish biology, conservation and management, hydrology and hydraulics, and GIS analyses, will work together towards the definition of novel fish-flow-climate relationships that can be used to define novel and efficient flow regulation guidelines, thresholds and optimal values for the promotion of fish-related EG&S in regulated ecosystems. ECO.Dams also includes a public participatory component, including dam managers, allowing to introduce socioeconomic and cultural perspectives on foreseen outputs. iii) ECO.Dams will push beyond conventional macroscale studies (e.g., fish abundance, structure, or large-scale movements), and will go deeper into fine-scale responses of fish species, at a behavioural, physiological, and individual level, to flow regulation. This implies the use of innovative and complementary methodologies, that are not common in this research area [5], such as fishermen surveys (Task 2), biologging and the used of unmanned vehicles (Task 3), intermittent respirometry (Task 4) and health-condition indexes (Task 5). iv) ECO.Dams will push boundaries in what is the current management of regulated rivers and dams, by proposing and adapting, to Mediterranean areas, the concept of “Ecoregulation” [4]. Dams exist, larger and productive ones will not be removed just for the protection of aquatic life, but they can regulate streamflow. Can this capacity be used to promote native fish populations, and control non-indigenous ones, thus promoting the services provided by these ecosystems?