Adaptation to minimize the joint impacts of climate change and the management of hydraulic infrastructures on fish and fish habitat

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In the context of climate change, the management of water releases downstream of reservoirs to maintainenvironmental flows is becoming more complex and better tools are required for forecasting anddecision-making. This proposal aims at acquiring new knowledge and developing/improving tools for reservoirmanagement in the context of climate change, in order to mitigate the impacts of potential increased watertemperature on fish. The approach is based on three sub-components: 1) Improve and adapt hydrological,hydraulic and water temperature models to the context of reservoir management. 2) Acquiring new keyknowledge on the physiology and temperature requirements of three important fish species that are present inthe Nechako system, where this study is taking place. 3) Use climate change scenarios to anticipate potentialchanges that may be required in the management of reservoir water releases. The benefits for the Canadianindustry include insights that will be gained from a first multi-species study of water temperature requirementsin an important managed watershed in Western Canada, improved modelling tools for flow and watertemperature management and training of highly qualified personnel with cross-disciplinary experience.