EARLY HEARING DETECTION AND INTERVENTION VIRTUAL CONFERENCE
MARCH 2-5, 2021
(Virtually the same conference, without elevators, airplane tickets, or hotel room keys)
5/24/2021 | 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM | A NEW METRIC OF RIVER FRAGMENTATION AND ITS APPLICATION IN CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT PLANNING IN A TROPICAL BIODIVERSE CATCHMENT IN THE WESTERN GHATS, INDIA | Virtual Platform
A NEW METRIC OF RIVER FRAGMENTATION AND ITS APPLICATION IN CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT PLANNING IN A TROPICAL BIODIVERSE CATCHMENT IN THE WESTERN GHATS, INDIA
Developing countries, like India, are witnessing a proliferation of dams to meet their demands. Thousands of dams are planned for future development in India’s Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot and freshwater ecoregion, with little consideration to impacts on biodiversity and local communities. Recognizing the need for a spatially explicit and empirically validated measure of river connectivity that can be applied in data-deficit regions, we propose the Area- and Rainfall-based Fragmentation Index (ARFI). Based on the Dendritic Connectivity Index (DCI) by Cote et al. (2009), the ARFI provides users with an easy-to-compute index while addressing the drawbacks of the DCI (which treats stream reaches across a longitudinal profile as equivalent). Since structural connectivity metrics do not necessarily predict functional connectivity, we test the ecological validity of the DCI and ARFI based on freshwater fish communities across dammed and undammed streams. We then apply these metrics to assess various scenarios of past, present, and future dam development in the west-flowing rivers of the Western Ghats. Finally, we assess the trade-offs between hydropower generation/irrigation and river fragmentation to identify ‘good’ and ‘bad’ dams, no-go river stretches, and priority mitigation zones.
- Tropical streams and lakes
- Anthropogenic
- Management
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Presenters/Authors
Suman Jumani
(), University of Florida, sumanjumani@ufl.edu;
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Matthew Deitch
(), University of Florida, West Florida Research and Education Center, mdeitch@ufl.edu;
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