A potential engineering solution to facilitate upstream movement of fish in mountain rivers with weirs: Southern Carpathians, the Azuga River

Abstract

An important aspect in the restoration of longitudinal connectivity in rivers and streams is the implementation of fish migration systems at the upstream of the functional hydraulic structures (weirs, drop structures or river sills). The diversity of these existing structures as well as the different locations of these weirs within the river, watershed and riparian zone challenge the design engineers to find new holistic solutions for fish migration systems. The Azuga River study area requires a new synergistic fish migration design system. Being a mountain area, rapid increase in water level is quite frequent, especially after heavy or prolonged rainfalls and during spring snow melt. Therefore, it is necessary to design a specific system for fish migration to meet this locations requirements. Due to the characteristics in this location of the Azuga river, the classic fish migration systems would not be functional. The indigenous/mountain trout is considered as the target species in this paper. Although this is a good swimming species, the use of classical systems could, due to exhaustion, prevent and/or reduce the movement of fish upstream of the two weirs (also known as river sills). This new, comprehensive solution, presented in this paper includes: (i) the restoration and stabilization works of the right bank in the weir study area by using biotechnical measures and (ii) the upstream migration system itself - for supporting the migration of fish on the Azuga River.