Civil engineering for passage of fish and fauna

Abstract

This paper summarises the key issues affecting the design of road structures that are required by an environmental report to be “’fish or fauna friendly”. The paper was prepared to help civil engineers understand these eco sensitive issues. It recommends civil engineering design parameters, choice of structural form and structure opening sizes, construction concepts and engineering design detailing of waterway bridges and culverts, road underpasses using bridges and culverts, and road overpasses using land bridges and canopy links – to best enable passage of various species. Also given are fishway design parameters, details of protective measures against predators, exclusion fencing and bat roost installation.

Keywords:

• Fish passage
• fi sh friendly
• fi shway
• wildlife corridor
• fauna passage
• fauna friendly
• fauna crossing
• canopy link
• bat roost

Additional information

Notes on contributors

V B Hyde

Brendon Hyde (BE, MEngSc, GradDipLLR, MICE, FIEPak, FIEAust, CPEng) has 40 years civil engineering experience, extensively designing road and rail bridges, as well as some heavy industrial structures. After early experience with DMR NSW, he has been engaged as a technical adviser by several government road, railway and dam authorities, and by many consulting engineering firms in Australia and overseas – from Asia to Africa. In 1992, Brendon gained an international engineering design award. A past secretary of the Austroads Structures Technology Group, he has authored numerous technical papers, as well as several design guidelines for the RTA NSW.