Due to recent rise of new paradigm, natural environment preservation, a bond of sympathy on necessity of preservation and improvement of river environment has been formed, and attempts to preserve and restore the inhabitation spaces of river ecosystem...
Due to recent rise of new paradigm, natural environment preservation, a bond of sympathy on necessity of preservation and improvement of river environment has been formed, and attempts to preserve and restore the inhabitation spaces of river ecosystem which is comfortable and closed to nature have been increased. To restore the ecosystem through securement of diversity of fish types, the regular paths for fish have been constructed and operated, but most fishways, installed in small and middle size rivers, were selected without enough research reviews on the functions.
Thus, when selecting the fishway, not only optimum flow calculation considering fish physical habitat but method that can improve the Weighted Usable Area (WUA), which is habitat in actual hydrological condition and inducement of various habitat simulation technologies to evaluate WUA should be required.
To analyze the hydraulic characteristics of close-to natural fish way, this study conducted hydraulic model experiments and 2-dimension numeric analysis (River 2D) about close-to natural fishway currently being installed in a right side of Buyeo weir. Also, for Zacco platypus which is a dominant species, to evaluate the fish habitat of close-to natural fishway, an WUA was calculated under ordinary water discharge condition, and to improve the WUA, pool of close-to natural fishway was changed artificially to review the condition that fish habitat can be improved, and followings show the research results.
From analysis on hydraulic characteristics of close-to natural fishway, water depth distribution in the close-to natural fishway was minimum 0.31m to maximum 1.14m, and water depth from close-to natural fishway inlet to outlet was 1.52 EL.m ∼ 4.26 EL.m, and also flow velocity was minimum 0.12m/sec and maximum 0.54m/sec.
WUAs meaning that physical habitat and activity region of Zacco platypus were calculated in two growth stages; adult and spawning. WUA in adult was 195.39m2, and spawning was 334.47m2.
To improve the WUA for each growth stage of Zacco platypus, artificial changes on close-to natural fishway (Increase of pool lateral distance: 1m ∼ 5m) were applied and WUAs were calculated. When there was no artificial changes on the pool, the biggest WUA value, 195.39m2, was calculated, and in case of spawning, when lateral distance of pool was increased by 1m, maximum WUA was calculated, 352.33m2.
From analysis results on improvement conditions of WUA, increasing rate of WUA vs. entire area was maximum when condition that there was no change on lateral distance of pool for adult, and when lateral distance of pool was increased by 1m for spawning. Thus, it is judged that these conditions are advantageous to improve the habitat and activity region of Zacco platypus.