Overcoming hydropower barriers to improve habitat connectivity and the conservation of threatened fish species
Project overview
The Moyar river, a tributary of South India’s Cauvery River, is home to some of the last remaining endemic fish species that once thrived in the Cauvery River system. Originating in the Shola grasslands, the Moyar River flows through tea estates, vegetable farms, elephant camps, villages, dry deciduous forests, and shrub jungles. However, it is dammed at multiple points for hydropower generation.
Threats
Disruption of water flow
Habitat loss & degradation
This project combines hydrological, ecological, and socio-political research into the historical and current status of the river and its management to understand the impacts of hydropower projects and local human activities on the conservation of threatened fish and their habitats in the Moyar river.
Project objectives
- Highlight the long-term impact of river damming on changes in fish species composition.
- Understand the current changes in the fish species composition and abundance across dammed and un-dammed sections of the river.
- Study the changes in fish life history parameters across sampled sites.
- Incorporate local knowledge of spatial and temporal changes in fish species composition, abundance and life history traits.
Project activities
- Map out the long-term and short-term changes in the flow regime of the river.
- Compile fish catch data from previously conducted surveys in the river and analyse it from the point of view of changes in fish functional groups.
- Conduct pre-monsoon and post-monsoon fish sampling study.
- Study the migration and age-structure of select fish species using otolith microscopy and microchemistry.
- Conduct memory mapping exercises and semi-structured interviews of communities living in close proximity to the river.
This project is implemented by Sri Ranjni Thangavelan Swaminathan, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment.
