RIBES – River flow regulation, fish BEhaviour and Status (ID: WLR_S2)

Topic

While the EU Biodiversity Strategy set ambitious targets for the protection and restoration of river ecosystems, the EU Directive on Renewable Energy Sources envisages consolidating the hydropower sector and exploiting its residual potential. River fragmentation induced by hydropower plants, together with flow modifications and habitat degradation, is a major threat affecting freshwater fish and ecosystems, further amplified by climate change. Under this scenario, researchers in Ecohydraulics must address basic and applied questions aimed at finding innovative solutions for freshwater fish protection and river continuity restoration in anthropogenically altered rivers. In this Special Session, current state-of-the-art basic and applied research dealing with fish passage, fish swimming and hydrodynamics and fish migration monitoring and modeling will be presented.