Evaluation of a fish-friendly self-cleaning horizontal irrigation screen using autonomous sensors

Abstract

Irrigation modernisation is booming globally because of the increasing demand on water and food. However, irrigation infrastructures can injure fish or entrain them into irrigation water. Screening is an effective method to mitigate fish entrainment. In this study, two autonomous sensor devices, developed and manufactured at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Sensor Fish and its miniaturised version, Sensor Fish Mini) were deployed to evaluate the physical and fish passage conditions of a unique horizontal, flat-plate fish and debris screen (known as the Farmers Screen) that was installed in Oregon, USA. Only 1 of the 27 Sensor Fish Mini releases had a severe acceleration event, whereas 0 of the 37 Sensor Fish releases had severe events. The rates of severe events and amplitudes of accelerations at the Farmers Screen were significantly lower than those at other hydraulic structures, including a fish-friendly surface weir that recorded nearly 100% fish survival. Overall, the results indicated that the Farmers Screens can provide safe downstream passage for fish at irrigation diversions. This study also demonstrated that the Sensor Fish technology, including Sensor Fish Mini, is a suitable technology for evaluating irrigation structures and providing important information for the development of sustainable irrigation.

Evaluation of fish-related properties of Kaplan turbines at the design phase: simulation-based outcomes vs. experimental data

“…The SF Mini was developed at PNNL and is a small-sized version of the standard Sensor Fish (the pair is shown fig. 2c; Deng et al 2014) to be deployed in infrastructure of small size (Salalila et al, 2019). The SF Mini were introduced into the turbine flow through an ingress pipe (fig.…”

Miniature Underwater Animal Tags and Smart Sensors for Civil Engineering Applications

“…The PNNL sensor fishes were used in field experiments at Davenport Farmers Screen [7] and the results were compared with previously conducted experiments at several dams and spillways. The purpose of the experiments is to identify severe acceleration events when a fish passes the civil infrastructure.…”

“…With a small form factor though, the sensing capabilities, communication range, and data storage become significant technical challenges. This paper gives an overview of several miniature smart sensors for underwater applications: one is the PNNL sensor fishes [7], one is the Lehigh smart pebbles, and one is the University of New Hampshire (UNH) smart grain [9], as shown in Fig. 2 and 3.…”

“…a) CAD drawings of the sensor fish and sensor fish mini, b) real model of SF and SF-mini. Reprint from[7].…”

Irrigation, fisheries and Sustainable Development Goals: the importance of working collaboratively to end world hunger and malnutrition

“…The research front includes a selection of articles that will advance knowledge on various aspects of fish and irrigation interactions, and the benefits that addressing these two issues will have in helping achieve the SDGs. Key topics include: a global update on the state of irrigation development (McCartney et al 2019) the importance of inland fisheries and relevance to the SDGs (Lynch et al 2019) the benefits of fisheries in irrigation systems (Dubois et al 2019) techniques to mitigate the effects of irrigation development, such as fishways, environmental flows, sustainably managed reservoirs and irrigation screens (Cooper et al 2019;Salalila et al 2019;Stuart et al 2019;Utomo et al 2019) irrigation and fisheries development issues in South-East Asia and Africa (Conallin et al 2019;O'Brien et al 2019;Utomo et al 2019).…”