Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Alabama
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Hydroelectric dams remain one of the primary sources of renewable energy globally. Hydropeaking regimes used to generate electricity are known to cause disturbances in natural flow and thermal conditions. Pulses of various magnitude create dual waves of sheer and thermal stress which, in general, cause a decrease in community complexity, richness, and native diversity downstream of hydropeaking dams. As human populations increase and become more reliable on renewable resources, reducing uncertainty regarding how hydropower impacts natural ecosystems is important to State and Federal partners as well as other stakeholders interested in multiple uses of river systems. R.L. Harris Dam is a hydropeaking facility located in the upper-central Tallapoosa River Basin that has been subject to an adaptive flow management project (R.L. Harris Adaptive Management Program, or AMP) since 2005. Our long-term study indicated that, despite improved flow regime plans during the AMP, communities in the regulated river remain dissimilar from those unaffected by the dam. The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources will use our data to investigate and predict how future alternate flow regime decisions from the dam will impact their biological objectives for biota. Metrics defining variation in flow, temperature, and local environmental variables will be used to best predict impacts to stakeholders values related to future flow regime decisions ultimately set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during dam re-licensing.