Field study of an attraction channel as entrance to fishways

A flow device that accelerates turbine tail water (or any free stream) to act as an attraction for migrating fish is field tested. The device consists of an open (U-shaped) channel which accelerates the incoming flow by a local constriction of the cross-sectional area. The velocity increase has previously been investigated in a lab-scale model and an increase of 38% has been established. In the summers of 2004 and 2005, a full-scale prototype of the attraction channel was tested at the Sikfors hydropower plant in the Pite River in Sweden. The channel was equipped with underwater cameras to monitor and record the fish swimming through it. The tests show that the fish do swim through the attraction channel. During the same time period in 2004 and 2005, 57 and 471 fishes swam through the channel, respectively. The major change of the channel between the two years was that it was painted black for 2005. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.