Transboundary Environmental Effects of Hydropower: Fish Community

Abstract

A growing number of studies are providing evidence that dam construction and operation of hydropower projects can lead to undesirable ecological responses in rivers (Nadon et al. 2015), and the influence of dams on fish diversity has become a major environmental problem (Ziv et al. 2012). Hydropower dams can lead to fish habitat fragmentation, obstruction of dispersal and migration movements, and loss of habitat, including spawning habitat, which has been directly linked to the loss of populations and species of freshwater fishes (Nilsson et al. 2005; Petesse and Petrere 2012; Gao et al. 2013).