Experimental Study of Canoe-fishway Hydraulic Condition

The idea of using canoe-fishway was first proposed by Hassinger (2002) and was experimentally conducted in the hydraulic laboratory of the Kassel University. Hassinger and Kraetz (2004) presented the general principles of the canoe-fishway design.
The idea of this new development was driven by the thought that a great number of thin and elastic rough elements on the one hand show a good performance in energy dissipation, and on the other hand, allows a man-driven boat to pass without being damaged. The brushes should be both firm enough to provide energy loss necessary to help fish climb easily and flexible enough to allow boats to pass through without being damaged and after the boats passing, the brushes will come back to their original state. About half of the experiments in running these facilities focuses on their application as only a fishway and the other concentrate on a hybrid structures as a canoe-fishway. Figure 1, shows an example of such fishway type (Hassinger., 2009).
In recent years, the development of studies and the construction of rubber dams within walking distance to the sea on the rivers in the north of the country, necessitate the need for constructing the environmentally friendly fishway. Constructing rubber dams near the sea disrupted the fishermen commuting and thus has created social tensions (Hedayati et al., 2012).
Hedayati et.al (2012) designed a canoe-fishway on Tajan rubber dam in Mazandaran province and compared it with the classic vertical slot fishway.
In this study, given the importance of creating environmentally friendly fishway on rubber dams in Mazandaran province and the problems created for small fishing boats travelling on Tajan River, first the laboratory canoe-fishway model was prepared by taking into account the fish biological parameters in Tajan, Then the depth and flow velocity were evaluated.