Report of the FAO/TCF workshop on fish passage design at cross-river obstacles – experiences from different countries, with potential relevance to Mongolia.

Report of the FAO/TCF workshop on fish passage design at cross-river obstacles – experiences from different countries, with potential relevance to Mongolia.

Selenge Resort, Mongolia, 7–12 April 2014

Year of publication 2015

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 66 p.

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Book (series)

ISBN 978-92-5-108828-9

Series title FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Report

Edition 1

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) The workshop “Fish passage design at cross-river obstacles – experiences from different countries, with potential relevance to Mongolia” was jointly organized by FAO and the Taimen Conservation Fund (TCF) of Mongolia and held in Mongolia in April 2014. Workshop participants included representatives from the Ministry of Nature and Green Development of Mongolia, the Egiin Gol Hydro Power Plant Project Unit (EGHPPPU), the Dorgon hydropower station, the Mongolian Mining Corporation, the National Wat er Association, civil society and the TCF. Workshop participants presented two country reports on the status of fish passage development, research and construction in Mongolia, and on the biology and behaviour of the most important fish species to be considered in planning fish passage facilities in Mongolia, and in particular in the Eg River. The resource persons presented knowledge on different fish passage issues from both the biological and the engineering perspectives. Although the known fa cts are mainly derived from studies in North America and Europe, the basic aspects can serve as “food for thought” also in other regions, including Mongolia. Information provided and designs presented should, however, under no circumstances just be copied but have to be adapted to local conditions (taking into due consideration the species present) while respecting the important basic design criteria which are valid for all passes of the same type at all locations, whether in Europe, North Ameri ca or Asia. As regards the planned Eg River hydropower plant, the workshop did not have a unanimous view concerning the need for, and the usefulness and the environmental impacts of, the planned dam construction. However, all workshop participants unanimously agreed that, should the dam on the Eg River be constructed, a fish passage system would be needed to mitigate the blocked upstream and downstream passage for maintaining genetic exchange between fish in the Eg and Selenge Rivers. The worksh op agreed that trap-andtransport for both upstream and downstream fish passage, with the option of later modifications, would be the only viable solution for this Eg River power plant. However, the resource persons clearly held that based on their assessment during the field visit and the additional information provided during the classroom sessions – from a fish ecological, biodiversity and fisheries point of view – the dam must not be constructed at the planned location because it would inflic t irreversible damage to the aquatic ecosystem. In fact, the excellent ecological status of the Eg River just upstream of the confluence with the Selenge River (and also further upstream in the watershed) calls for the preservation of the given morphological and hydrological characteristics. Alternatives should be sought as regards either the location of the dam (i.e. consider to construct one dam or several smaller dams on one or several other rivers that are less important for taimen) or the t ype of energy produced (solar or wind). Furthermore, the resource persons held that, most importantly, the workshop must not be seen as encouragement to construct new dams solely because the principles of the design and construction of fish passage facilities are known.

Language English

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Book (series)

Report of the FAO/SEAFDEC Workshop on Principles of Improved Fish Passage at Cross-river Obstacles, with Relevance to Southeast Asia, Khon Kaen, Thailand, 17-20 March 2013
FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Report No. 1054
2013

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The FAO/SEAFDEC Workshop on Principles of Improved Fish Passage at Cross-river Obstacles, with Relevance to Southeast Asia was held in Khon Kaen, Thailand, in March 2013. In this workshop participated representatives from agencies responsible for fisheries and/or construction/operation of cross-river obstacles from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam, as well as the SEAFDEC Secretary-General and officers of the SEAF DEC Secretariat and Training Department, and representatives from the Mekong River Commission (MRC). Country reports on fish passage issues in the participating countries were presented by the participants. Knowledge on fish passage from both the biological and the engineering perspectives, including basic aspect on fish biology and behaviour relevant to fish migration, different types of fish passage facilities, ecological and hydrological requirements for enhancing the effectiveness of fish pa ssages, as well as the monitoring, evaluation and maintenance of fish passages, was presented. Although the known facts are mainly derived from studies in North America and Europe, basic aspects can serve as “food for thought” also in other regions, including Southeast Asia. Information provided and designs presented should, however, under no circumstances just be copied but have to be adapted to local conditions (taking into due consideration the species present) while respecting the important basic design criteria which are valid for all passes of the same type at all locations, whether in Europe, North America or Asia. Importantly, this workshop must not be seen as an encouragement to construct new dams because the principles of the design and construction of fish passage facilities are known.
Meeting

Report of the IOTC CPUE Workshop 2013

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A Workshop developing assessing CPUE trends and techniques used by IOTC RFMO was held in AZTI Teclia in San Sebastian (Spain), from 21 to 22 October 2013. The following were the key issues and recommendations identified at the meeting: 1. Use of newer standardization techniques (GLMM, GEOSTATISTICAL APPROACHES and CORE AREA APPROACHES) using operatiol data to assess divergence in CPUE?s across fleets. 1.1. While standard approaches worked well in most cases, the CPUE WG recommended that newer ap proaches should be tested. The results of the workshop conducted over the two day period, indicated that the GLMM models tend to capture the trends better. In addition incorporating more vessel specifics and using geostatistical techniques is another approach to pursue over time. Filly, the use of core-area approaches may be informative for by-catch species. Moreover, the majority feeling of the group was that during CPUE standardization the use of operatiol data when they are available is recom mended as it will allow to capture the covariates that are important during the standardization process. 1.2. The strongest recommendation that came out of the workshop was that in areas where CPUE’s diverged the CPC’s were encouraged to meet inter-sessiolly to resolve the differences. In addition, the major CPC’s were encouraged to develop a combined CPUE from multiple fleets so it may capture the true abundance better. Approaches to possibly pursue are the following: i) Assess filtering approa ches on data and whether they have an effect, ii) examine spatial resolution on fleets operating and whether this is the primary reason for differences, and iii) examine fleet efficiencies by area, iv) use operatiol data for the standardization, and v) have a meeting amongst all operatiol level data across all fleets to assess an approach where we may look at catch rates across the broad areas. 1.3. Simulation studies could also be developed to assess which models work best (delta log-Normal, ze ro inflated versus standard GLM+constant, Tweedie). 1.4. Operatiol level data is useful if we want to quantify fishing fleet efficiency using fleet dymic covariates. More applications could be developed using the methods developed by Hoyle and Okamoto (2010), or Hoyle (2009), and prelimirily presented by Dr. Okamoto at the CPUE workshop. 1.5. Assess how core area Standardization works along with out of core or boundary area effects. 1.6. Environmental data would be useful to consider in relation to standardization approaches. However, the way it is usually performed in GLMs, where an environmental covariate is associated to each observation (in regular 1°, 5° or even 10° grids) , may not be the most pertinent as it does not allow to identify the ecological processes which may affect CPUE. Altertively, GLMs could be performed in sub-areas where the variability pattern of the environmental sigture is well identified (using spatial EOFs to delineate those sub-areas). In such sub-areas, GL Ms could be designed with and without environmental covariates to understand the potential effect of the environment. Environmental covariates should be in limited numbers (the lesser the better) and selected in order to test hypothesis on the ecological processes at stake. Develop robust CPUE series for other species and Working Parties. 2.1. The Working Group recommended to also focus the efforts in other species such as Temperate Tu. In addition the WG recommended, developing better CPUE data for Neritic Tu, and also improving the data and standardization on marlins and sharks. 2.2. Develop a reference manual for use in performing a CPUE standardization for any fleet in any working party (e.g. neritic tu WP or temperate tu WP). Criteria for inclusion of the data in a stock assessment should also be developed (possibly using ICCAT techniques as a baseline). With regard to Purse Seine data the following were recommended: 3.1. Approaches being pursued by EU scientist have some promise, and more work should be put in the development of an index of abundance for the PS fleet on Skipjack Tu, Yellowfin Tu and Bigeye Tu. 3.2. The availability of Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) data is a major requirement for the purse seine fishing fleet as it ebles to spatialize the nomil effort (i.e. fishing or searching time), which is key to appreciate the temporal changes in the spatial extent of the prospected areas. VMS data may also be used to alyze PS trajectories with the aim to discrimit e sets on FADs equipped with buoys from free school sets, log sets and foreign FADs sets (see after) 3.3. Purse seiners currently fish during the same trip on a combition of free-swimming and drifting FAD-associated schools. In addition, fishing on FADs results from both the detection of vessel-owned FADs through GPS geolocation systems as well as from the finding of 'foreign' FADs through bird detection for instance. Future alyses should focus on the separation of fishing time between searching and running towards FADs. Classification methods based on indicators describing spatial behaviour of vessels could eble to define typical fishing strategies and categorize trip components into such categories. 3.4. Data available on FAD activities collection have improved recently. Future alyses should focus on the definition of a fishing effort for purse seiners using FADs by (i) looking at the influence of the number of FADs owned by a vessel on individual CPUEs, (ii) by investigating the CPU Es in areas characterized by strong contrasts in FAD density. The influence of supply vessels on catch rates (e.g. the number of sets per day) and on the overall fishing capacity of the PS fleet should also be investigated at the vessel level through the information available from supply logbooks. 3.5. Alyses of temporal changes in individual and overall fleet catchability from CPUEs should be conducted to estimate fishing power creep and investigate how such changes are related with some major technological changes known for the PS fleet (e.g. bird radar). Including vessel effects into GLMs can reveal useful insights on vessel efficiency for such alyses. Attention should be paid also for change over time of fishery indicators which are part of the CPUE (e.g., number of set by day, % of successful set, catch size of the set). 4. The CPUE Workshop participants recommended that a thorough alysis of the history of the fishery would be useful for references for each species. In addition, t he Group agreed that a central body (the Secretariat) should undertake additiol activities in key areas (Neritic tus where they can develop/collate the existing data on catch and effort and alyse this for some key species (eg. Longtail and Kawakawa)). 5. The CPUE Standardization Working Group agreed that a reference document that IOTC could use in what criteria should be used in utilizing a dataset for CPUE Standardization for all WP would incorporate the specifics of the temporal and spatial co verage of the data, and useful covariates that could quantify the fishing activity and the environment in which the fish lived.
Book (series)

FAO/TCF Workshop on Advanced methods for the analysis of hard structures of fish to assess fish migration and feeding behaviour in view of improved management 2016

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The FAO/TCF workshop, held in Mongolia from 7 - 13 October 2015, was attended by government officials and representatives of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, universities, the Eg River Hydropower Project Unit, the private sector and the Taimen Conservation Fund. Classroom sessions provided a broad overview of the background and theoretical aspects of the isotope analysis. Practical field work pertained to identifying and characterizing relevant sampling sites, sampling of fish and extracting a nd preserving of hard structures. Also water samples were taken. State-of-the-art knowledge concerning the isotope analysis in fish hard parts was presented to raise awareness of the benefits of this technique for the characterization of fish migration and feeding behaviour, and to stimulate informed discussions about fish migrations, fish protection, aquatic habitat and living aquatic resources management, and related issues in view of an improved integrated basin management. Local aquatic envi ronmental issues, potential human-induced threats to the aquatic environment, and especially actual and potential impacts on fish and fisheries in the Eg/Selenge catchment, were scrutinised. Potential approaches based on science were discussed. There was agreement that further aquatic environmental studies would be beneficial to better understand river-related processes and potential implications of planned measures in the Eg/Selenge basin.

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