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Fishway in hydropower dams: a scientometric analysis

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Abstract

Building dams for hydroelectric use causes several negative effects on the aquatic fauna with special attention to fish communities. In fact, among other impacts, dams act as a barrier for migratory fish, causing discontinuities in rivers and not allowing fish to move to the headwaters to breed and back to the lower portions of rivers, to grow. For more than 300 years, fishways have been used to minimize the impact of dams. Here, we assess the worldwide knowledge about fishways, identifying the temporal and spatial pattern and the situation of Brazil in this global pattern. For this, we conducted scientometric research on the Web of Science repository with the following words: weir, fish, facilities, ladder, pass, dam, fish ladder, fish pass, fishway, hydropower, Petromyzon, and salmon between 1985 and 2019. Initially, we obtained 1282 articles. After a selection, 324 articles aimed to describe fishway efficiency and the relationship with the fish fauna remained. Most of the articles on dams, fishways, and fish are from North America and Europe. Among the articles in South America, most are from Brazil. Nonetheless, information on the topic is incipient in Brazil, since the country has one of the biggest hydropower in the world and 42 scientific articles about fishways published in the international scientific database. Ecology is the area of knowledge with most articles, with continuous growth in the last 10 years. Studies in the field of ecology are strategical, as this field can integrate different areas of knowledge to test the efficiency of fishways in fish conservation and may be able to answer the question: “Are fishways an ecological trap?” Research focusing on this question is important to understand the efficiency of fishways to better evaluate solutions to minimize the negative effects of dams on fish and increase the effectiveness of fishways.

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Funding

Part of this study was funded by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES) finance code 001.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biodiversidade e Conservação – PPGBC, Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Campus Altamira, Rua Coronel José Porfírio 2515, São Sebastião, Altamira, PA, 68372-040, Brazil

    Jhonnes Luciano Brito-Santos, Karina Dias-Silva, Jennifer Bandeira da Silva, Leandro Melo de Sousa & Thiago Bernardi Vieira

  2. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Campus Guamá, Av. Perimetral, no. 1901, Terra Firme, Belém , Pará, 66017-970, Brazil

    Leandro Schlemmer Brasil, Leandro Melo de Sousa & Thiago Bernardi Vieira

  3. Faculdade de Engenharia Florestal – FAV, Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Campus Altamira. Rua Coronel José Porfírio 2515, São Sebastião, Altamira, PA, 68372-040, Brazil

    Alana de Moura Santos

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  1. Jhonnes Luciano Brito-Santos
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Contributions

JLB-S: writing—original draft (lead); KD-S: writing—review and editing (equal); LSB: writing—review and editing (equal); JBDS: writing—review and editing (equal); ADMS: writing—review and editing (equal); LMDS: writing—review and editing (equal); TBV: formal analysis (lead) and supervision (lead).

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Correspondence to Thiago Bernardi Vieira.

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Brito-Santos, J.L., Dias-Silva, K., Brasil, L.S. et al. Fishway in hydropower dams: a scientometric analysis. Environ Monit Assess 193, 752 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-021-09360-z

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