Historical patterns of river stage and fish communities as criteria for operations of dams on the Illinois river

Abstract

The hydrologic regime of the Illinois River has been altered over the past 100 years. Locks and dams regulate water surface elevations and flow, enabling commercial navigation to continue year round. This study relates changes in water surface elevation to fish abundance in the river, and establishes target criteria for operating locks and dams. Using longterm records of daily river stage, we identified ecologically meaningful hydrological parameters for eight gage locations along the Illinois River. Inter-annual variability of a long-term fisheries dataset beginning in 1957 was related to variability in stage, flood and recession duration, frequency, timing, and rate of change of water levels. Reversals in water surface elevation, maximum stage levels, and length of the spring flood were the most important parameters influencing abundance of age-zero fishes in annual collections. Smallmouth buffalo (Ictiobus bubalus), black crappie (Pomoxis nigromaculatus), freshwater drum (Aplodinotus grunneins), and white bass (Morone chrysops) were most abundant in samples during years that approximated the natural water level regime. Of the 33 hydrologic parameters evaluated for the entire water year from an Illinois River gage site on La Grange Reach, all except average stage in January and Julian date (JD) of maximum stage had moderate or high hydrologic alteration based on the historical range of variation (RVA). The highest degree of hydrologic alteration was for minimum stage levels (1-day, 3-day, and 7-day), rate-of-rise, and rate-of-fall. Other parameters that have been severely altered were 30-day minimum stage, 90-day maximum stage, and the annual number of water level reversals. Operations of the La Grange and Peoria locks and dams could be modified so water level variability would approximate that of the late 1800s, when fish and wildlife resources were abundant. The water regime could be regulated to maintain navigation and improve conditions for native plants and animals without increasing flood damages.

Effects of historic flooding on fishes and aquatic habitats in a Missouri River delta

“…It has been hypothesized that flood-induced egg drift causes hatching to occur primarily in productive backwaters located downstream from spawning areas (Koel & Sparks 2002). Freshwater drum spawn in the Delta from June to July (Swedberg & Walburg 1970), a time period overlapped by the 2011 flood, thus egg drift may have been a mechanism for low juvenile CPUE during the disturbance.…”

“…Common carp, the only introduced fish that was sufficiently abundant for population assessment in this study, can have profound negative effects on aquatic ecosystems by resuspending sediments and increasing turbidity (Kloskowski 2011). With high adaptability and prolific spawning capacity, common carp readily exploit floodplain habitats under diverse hydrological conditions (Koel & Sparks 2002;Penne & Pierce 2008;Sommer et al 2014). It is pertinent for fisheries managers to design water management strategies that benefit native species in deltas without simultaneously promoting introduced fishes (Stoffels et al 2014).…”

“…Floodplain inundation alone may not be sufficient to limit introduced species (Sommer et al 2014). However, naturalization of the flow regime with respect to the magnitude, frequency, duration, timing, and rate of change of water levels (Richter et al 1996) may offer native species a competitive advantage for food and habitat resources (Koel & Sparks 2002). From a fisheries management perspective, it is important to manage reservoirs in ways that maintain or enhance sport fish production (Sammons et al 2001).…”

Putting Flow–Ecology Relationships into Practice: A Decision-Support System to Assess Fish Community Response to Water-Management Scenarios

“…This conflation of divergent sets of objectives may obscure important details relevant to water management and aquatic conservation. For example, a proposed flow alteration might enhance some components of the flow regime while degrading others, and it might benefit some taxonomic groups at the expense of others [47][48][49][50]. These limitations may help explain why the growing research on optimization modeling has generally failed to inform actual water-management decision-making [17].…”

The Socio–economic Characteristics of Communities at the Downstream Sector of Jebba Dam, Nigeria

“…Indeed, comparison studies show that while larger and deeper reservoirs yield fish, on average, at 10-50 kg/ha/y, flood-plains average 200-2000 kg/ha/y (Jackson and Marmulla, 2000). The three key factors supporting this increased productivity in floodplain rivers are the extent of the flooded area (Halls and Welcomme, 2004;Tockner and Stanford, 2002), flood duration (Koel and Sparks, 2002), and timing of the flood peak (Hoggarth et al, 1999).…”