Internship position : Title: Modeling the hydraulic impact of river obstacles on the physical environment of migratory fish

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INRAE presentation

The French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE) is a major player in research and innovation. It is a community of 12,000 people with 272 research, experimental research, and support units located in 18 regional centres throughout France. Internationally, INRAE is among the top research organisations in the agricultural and food sciences, plant and animal sciences, as well as in ecology and environmental science. It is the world’s leading research organisation specialising in agriculture, food and the environment. INRAE’s goal is to be a key player in the transitions necessary to address major global challenges. Faced with a growing world population, climate change, resource scarcity, and declining biodiversity, the Institute has a major role to play in building solutions and supporting the necessary acceleration of agricultural, food and environmental transitions.

Work environment, missions and activities

You will be welcomed in the FREEMA research team (Functioning and Restoration of Estuarine Ecosystems and Diadromous Migratory Fish), within the EABX unit (Aquatic Ecosystems and Global Change). Your mission will be carried out within the framework of the DEBBARRAGE research project, funded by the French Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. 

You will help formally represent the hydraulic consequences of obstacles to fish migration in order to produce scenarios of environmental perturbations to be used in simulations of  individual-based bio-energetic models. 

Scientific Background

Man-made obstacles do not only alter river continuity (Baudoin et al., 2014; Van Puijenbroek et al., 2019),but also alter other environmental conditions such as temperature, flow speed, water level, and turbulence, in a season- and flow-dependent manner. Hence, in order to understand how obstacles impact fish migration, it is important to move beyond binary alternatives (passage or non-passage) and consider how they modify the hydrodynamics in ways that affect the fish. Depending on these effects, a given obstacle may force a brief but intense locomotory effort on the fish, delay its migration, prevent recovery from previous efforts or increase mortality risks (Croze, 2008.; Haro et al., 1998). To study these effects, it is necessary at first to draw a systematic and quantitative picture of the modifications induced by obstacles on local hydraulics parameters. You will focus on those parameters that will be used subsequently in an energetic model of fish migration that is currently under development in our research team.

Supervision and collaborations

The internship will be co-supervised by Paul Benne (PhD student at Bordeaux University) & Mehdi Cherif (Researcher at INRAE), and integrated into an ongoing project about obstacle effects on fish migration and energetics.  You will also collaborate with Charlotte Récapet, associate professor at  the University of Pau & Pays de l’Adour. Other collaborations will happen as needed with members of the research team FREEMA , as well as an involvement in the research unit day-to-day activities.

Scientific aims 

The main goal is to identify the environmental variables that are modified by man-made obstacles and that affect fish migration in rivers. These patterns of hydraulic alterations will then be translated into different migration scenarios that will be fed into an individual bio-energetic model to calculate the additional energetic costs of obstacles. Milestone objectives will be set, i.e., you will: 

• Conduct a literary review to identify:

1.  What are the hydraulic parameters that are modified by obstacles and that impact fish migration (e.g., water velocity, depth, discharge or turbulence).
2.  What properties of obstacles are necessary in order to estimate these effects.

• Conduct an exploratory analysis of the mechanisms linking the selected hydraulic parameters and obstacle properties under various seasonal and flow-rate variations.
• Put forward generic mathematical formulations linking hydraulic parameters and obstacle properties.

Main tasks

• Search for, select, and organize the relevant information gathered from the scientific literature.
• Interpret and eventually analyze open-access data linking obstacles and hydraulic parameters.
• Conceptualize and model the impact of obstacles on the river local hydraulics.
• Compare and classify obstacles based on their hydraulic impacts.

References 

Baudoin, J.-M., Burgun, V., Chanseau, M., Larinier, M., Ovidio, M., Sremski, W., Steinbach, P., & Voegtle, B. (2014). Informations sur la Continuité Ecologique—ICE (Comprendre pour agir, p. 200). ONEMA.

Croze, O. (s. d.). Impact des seuils et barrages sur la migration anadrome du saumon atlantique (Salmo salar L. ).

Haro, A., Odeh, M., Noreika, J., & Castro-Santos, T. (1998). Effect of Water Acceleration on Downstream Migratory Behavior and Passage of Atlantic Salmon Smolts and Juvenile American Shad at Surface Bypasses. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, 127(1), 118‑127. https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8659(1998)127%3C0118:EOWAOD%3E2.0.CO;2

Van Puijenbroek, P. J. T. M., Buijse, A. D., Kraak, M. H. S., & Verdonschot, P. F. M. (2019). Species and river specific effects of river fragmentation on European anadromous fish species. River Research and Applications, 35(1), 68‑77. https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.3386

 

Training and skills

Recommended qualifications: ongoing Master degree or equivalent in hydraulics, fluvial geomorphology, environmental modeling, hydrology, limnology or similar disciplines.

Expected knowledge: hydraulics, hydrology, aquatic ecology, fish ecology, river geomorphology.

Appreciated experience: in literature review, data analysis, critical thinking, synthesis, use of the software R.

Skills sought: autonomy, rigorous methodology, critical thinking, interest in interdisciplinary approaches (hydraulics, ecology & modeling). Interest in aquatic environments, fish ecology and migration is a plus.

INRAE's life quality

By joining our teams, you benefit from (depending on the type of contract and its duration):

- right to 2.5 days of vacation per month of internship completed;
- parenting support: CESU childcare, leisure services;
- skills development systems: training, career advise;
- social support: advice and listening, social assistance and loans;
- holiday and leisure services: holiday vouchers, accommodation at preferential rates;
- sports and cultural activities;
- collective catering;

-partial coverage of home-to-work commute pass (TER, TBM).

How to apply

I send my CV and my motivation letter