Behavioral responses of fish to a current-based hydrokinetic turbine under mutliple operational conditions
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Behavioral responses of fish to a current-based hydrokinetic turbine under mutliple operational conditions Mark Grippo & Gayle Zydlewski & Haixue Shen & R. Andrew Goodwin
Received: 30 September 2019 / Accepted: 6 September 2020 # This is a U.S. government work and not under copyright protection in the U.S.; foreign copyright protection may apply 2020
Abstract There is significant international interest in developing current-based marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) technologies to capture the power of tidal energy. However, concerns have been raised regarding the ecological effects of these projects on fish, including the risk of blade collision and behavioral impacts such as the disruption of migratory behavior and food acquisition and displacement from preferred habitats. We conducted mobile hydroacoustic surveys to track fish as they approached a tidal turbine deployed in Cobscook Bay, Maine. There was a significant decline in fish numbers with decreasing distance to the turbine, beginning approximately 140 m from the turbine. Similar declines were not observed at control transects or when the turbine was not spinning. The decline in fish numbers appeared to be the result of horizontal displacement, not vertical, movements to avoid the turbine. Noise rather than visual cues or flow field disturbance seemed to be a likely explanation for the reduced number of fish near the turbine. This finding, combined with
M. Grippo (*) Argonne National Laboratory, Environmental Science Division, 9700 S. Cass Ave, Argonne, IL 60439, USA e-mail: [email protected] G. Zydlewski : H. Shen School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, 5741 Libby Hall, Orono, ME 04469-5741, USA R. A. Goodwin US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Environmental Laboratory, US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Portland, OR 97208, USA
near-field blade collision studies indicating a low probability of encounter, suggests that a single turbine poses a low collision risk to pelagic fish and that a single turbine is likely to result in minimal behavioral responses by fish. However, the risk may be different with additional devices, which will become more relevant as commercial-scale MHK arrays come under consideration. Therefore, the risks associated with commercialscale operations will ultimately have to be evaluated to fully understand the ecological impacts of MHK devices. Keywords Hydrokinetic energy . ELAM . Fish behavior . Agent based modeling
Introduction In recent years, there has been significant international interest in developing current-based marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) technologies to capture the power of tidal energy resources. In an analysis of tidal energy potential in the USA, the USDOE estimated the technical tidal energy potential in the USA to be 222–334 TWh/year (US Department of Energy 2009). However, concerns have been raised regarding the effects of these projects on the physical and biological environment. Determining the potential impacts of MHK devices on fish behavior is critical to addressing the envir
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