Identification of human-made physical barriers to fish passage in the Wet Tropics region, Australia

Abstract

Human-made physical barriers to fish passage were identified in the Wet Tropics region, Far North Queensland, Australia, through a desktop GIS analysis of the stream and transport networks. A total of 3748 of such potential barriers, comprising bridges, culverts and causeways, were identified in a stream network of 18363km at a scale of 1:100000. These records provide a first step for a complete barrier inventory and assessment for this region, which can be used to prioritise potential barriers for removal and remediation to improve native fish movement and fisheries production.