Cameras at Black Canyon

Hydraulics and Flow Dynamics

A hydraulic barrier could be any flow condition that would delay or prevent upstream fish migration or pose health challenges to fish (e.g., prolonged anaerobic swimming, surficial damage through contact with riverbed). Hydraulic barriers may exist at all discharges or only above or below a threshold water discharge for a given challenging river section. However, understanding flow conditions and discharges that present hydraulic barriers to upstream salmon migration in the Fraser Canyon is limited by a lack of high resolution observations.

Current work

We used acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP) to collect high resolution measurements of 3D velocity structures at Yale Rapids, the Big Bar Landslide site, and the entire Fraser Canyon (Soda Creek - Yale) between November 2021 - May 2022. In February and March 2022, we installed over 40 water level loggers in the Fraser Canyon, focusing on known and potential hydraulic barriers (e.g., Big Bar,  Black Canyon), that will measure water depth across these barriers as discharge varies. To assess surface velocities, we have conducted drone flights at key sites in the lower Fraser Canyon and installed a series of fixed field cameras at the Big Bar Landslide site, Hell's Gate, Black Canyon, and Chapman's Rapid. Using footage from both the cameras and drones, we are calculating water surface velocities with large-scale particle image velocimetry.