Instream barriers such as weirs and dams have contributed to the decline in fish populations worldwide. The UNSW Tube Fishway, developed by a cross-disciplinary team of hydraulic engineers and fish biologists, cyclically attracts and lifts fish with an unsteady surge across barriers. The Tube Fishway has been successfully tested at the UNSW Water Research Laboratory (WRL) and in short-term field trials in Australia. Using the lessons learnt from these field trials, this TOR project aims to advance the design of the attraction chamber of the fishway to provide a refuge for fish prior to being lifted. Specifically, the operation of a modified attraction chamber will be tested to ensure efficient and safe operation for fish by quantifying delivered surge velocity and volume, that will be used as input for numerical modelling. Weather permitting, the student may also become involved in a Tube Fishway field test.
School
Civil and Environmental Engineering
Research Area
Hydraulic engineering | Ecohydraulics | Fluid mechanics | Water resources engineering | Environmental engineering
Suitable for recognition of Work Integrated Learning (industrial training)?
Please check with project lead
- Research environment
- Expected outcomes
- Supervisory team
- Reference material/links
This research project will take place at the UNSW Water Research Laboratory (WRL) in Manly Vale. WRL is a vibrant part of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and home to the largest and most comprehensive hydraulics laboratories in Australia. WRL is a specialist fundamental and applied research organisation, focusing on issues related to water. For more than 60 years WRL has tackled complex challenges in areas of coastal, environmental and eco-engineering, hydrology, water resources, hydraulics and groundwater.
The experiments of this TOR project will be conducted in in the Tube Fishway research facility, a dedicated research space which comprises a temperature-controlled fish keeping facility that houses native Australian fish species, as well as a research space with several Tube Fishway research installations. This research facility is used by the cross-disciplinary Tube Fishway team including four PhD students providing a critical mass of research personnel and a friendly research environment.
The project will be led by A/Prof Stefan Felder, who will be responsible for the engineering aspects of the project, while Dr Jasmin Martino will bring fish biology expertise to the project.
- Attraction chamber with refuge zone to improve attraction of fish whilst maintaining safe lifting.
- Guidelines for efficient attracting and lifting of fish.
- Guidance for future field testing and validation data for numerical modelling.
https://www.unsw.edu.au/research/wrl/our-research/tube-fishway-project
Relevant selected publications:
- Cox RX; Kingsford RT; Suthers I; Felder S, 2023, 'Fish Injury from Movements across Hydraulic Structures: A Review', Water (Switzerland), 15, http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w15101888
- Farzadkhoo M; Kingsford RT; Suthers IM; Felder S, 2023, 'Flow hydrodynamics drive effective fish attraction behaviour into slotted fishway entrances', Journal of Hydrodynamics, 35, pp. 782 - 802, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42241-023-0047-6
- Peirson WL; Harris JH; Suthers IM; Farzadkhoo M; Kingsford RT; Felder S, 2022, 'Impacts on fish transported in tube fishways', Journal of Hydro-Environment Research, vol. 42, pp. 1 - 11, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jher.2022.03.001