Assessment of Fish Habitat Suitability in Alluvial Rivers: An Eco-Hydraulic Modeling of Meandering and Braided Channels

Abstract

Diverse river channel types in alluvial rivers hold great significance in river dynamics and fish protection. How fish habitat suitability of meandering and braided river channels varies under complex flow scenarios remains partially unexplored. This research employed an eco-hydraulic model to assess the habitat suitability of seven alluvial river types for Schizothorax prenanti and Schizothorax davidi under normal discharges, short-term flood flush and long-term flush in the Yangtze River source. The seven designed rivers included a straight river channel, three types of meandering rivers, and three types of braided rivers. The results indicated that both species exhibited considerable habitat suitability in meandering and braided rivers under discharge corresponding to the 3/4 elevation of each channel. Flood flush had an adverse impact on fish habitat suitability. Long-term flush had little effect on the habitat suitability of meandering rivers but decreased that of braided rivers. Furthermore, increasing sinuosity of meandering rivers was not always beneficial for improving habitat suitability, and regular sandbar shape in braided rivers brought more habitat benefits. Under all flow scenarios, the habitat suitability of meandering rivers was generally higher than that of braided rivers, and the habitat suitability of seven river channels for Schizothorax prenanti was generally higher than that for Schizothorax davidi. The results can provide references for developing fish habitat assessments in river management and fish conservation.

Keywords

meandering river / braided river / fish habitat assessment / eco-hydraulic model / Schumm classification / environment geology

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China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, Part of Springer Nature