A sustainability study of the flow regulation impacts by dams in a carp breeding river using the hydrodynamic model and building block analysis

Abstract

Halda, one of the major tributaries of the mountainous river Karnaphuli, is well known as the country’s only natural carp spawning ground. Naturally fertilized eggs of carps collected from Halda River are hatched in mud-made scoops on the river bank for aquaculture purposes. However, the river habitat is under constant threat due to human interventions like loop cutting, pollution from the paper mill and power plant, blocking natural water flow of larger tributaries by introducing sluice gates, embankments and rubber dam over the river at upstream, as well natural causes like siltation, erosion and climate change impacts. A study is conducted to address the issues of the ecosystem, sustainable management and the flow regulation impacts of dams in the Halda River, although the flow regulation assessments are conducted based on the macroinvertebrate, index-based framework, land-use effects on the hydrology, new indicators development, hydrologic impact assessment, hydrodynamics in dam regulated rivers, surface-water hydrodynamics and regimes of a small mountain stream and wide range of initiatives. In our case, we considered runoff flow, mountainous flow and dams in the rivers are primary parameters for assessment, so based on previous studies we decided to simulate a hydrologic and hydrodynamic model for the dam and without dam scenarios. Major difficulties and challenges for the environmental flow analysis of a river are continuous data availability. In this research, a hydrologic model ArcSWAT has been built to assess the contribution of rainfall on the river discharge to be used as output from the tributaries in the hydrodynamic model Delft3D. The research findings help us to perceive the effect of the dams on fish breeding condition in the river. In order to perform the environment flow analysis of the river, Tennant method has been followed in the study, which is a secure and reliable approach. The flow regulation impacts are assessed for fish habitat and spawning in the river area based on the simulations. Finally, the findings are further analyzed for velocity profiles for dams by building block method for the sustainable aquatic habitat in the Halda River.