Regional Assessements and Decision Support Tools to Guide Fish Passage in the Southeastern US: An Introduction to the Seacap Program

Fragmentation of river habitats by dams is one of the primary threats to aquatic species in the United States. Barriers limit the ability of fish populations from moving among habitats critical to their life requirements. To help address this problem, The Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership (SARP) has developed the Southeast Aquatic Connectivity Assessment Program (SEACAP). This program is a partnership with American Rivers and consists of three parts:

1)     Create and maintain a GIS based fish barrier inventory and assessments.

SARP and the Nature Conservancy have completed a large scale assessment of dams in the Southeastern US called the Southeast Aquatic Connectivity Assessment Project which prioritizes barriers for removal or bypass based on ecological metrics. Other barrier assessments have been completed within NC and TN.

2)     Provide technical support and training to facilitate on-the-ground restoration from assessment results.

With the assessment results in-hand, SARP and American Rivers perform reconnaissance of top ranking dams to provide high quality potential projects to statewide connectivity teams and local project managers.

3)     Initiate Connectivity Teams and bring these teams together to initiate and develop working relationships.

SARP and American Rivers hope to develop new “Connectivity Teams,” facilitating a culture of connectivity improvement in other SARP states.