Geographic Information Systems in Fisheries

Chapter 4: Geographic Information Systems Applications in Reservoir Fisheries

Craig P. Paukert and James M. Long

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781888569575.ch4

Geographic information systems (GIS) are a rapidly emerging technology in freshwater fisheries science (Isaak and Hubert 1997). Although GIS technology has been used widely in terrestrial applications and increasingly has been used in marine environments, reservoir applications have lagged behind other freshwater applications. Four general questions can be answered with GIS (ESRI 1990) that apply to reservoir systems. (1) What characteristics (i.e., attributes) are associated with a particular location (e.g., What reservoir bottom topography is associated with fish spawning areas?)? (2) Which locations meet specific criteria (e.g., Which reservoir areas have a slope <5% and a gravel substrate?)? (3) Are there any spatial patterns related to that location (e.g., Do fish use these areas more during periods of higher inflows or water levels?)? (4) What happens if a particular event occurs (e.g., How much spawning habitat is lost if a reservoir is drawn down 3 m?)?

Although there has been extensive research on fish-habitat associations in reservoirs, there has been little attention given to the use of GIS in reservoir fisheries assessment. The value of GIS is the ability to analyze complex spatial patterns simultaneously. For example, coverages of reservoir attributes (depth, slope, vegetation coverage) can be overlaid with telemetry locations to determine habitat preferences of a fish. From this, biologists can query certain attributes and ask specific questions such as: Do fish use vegetated areas with slopes less than 5% during the spring? Examples of GIS applications in reservoir fisheries involve examination of habitat (Cross 1991; Parsely and Beckman 1994; Irwin and Noble 1996; Long 2000), vegetation (Remillard and Welch 1993; Cunningham 2000), fish movement (Rogers and Bergersen 1996; Zigler et al. 1999), and fish yield (DeSilva et al. 2001).