Effect of surface hydraulics and salmon redd size on redd induced
hyporheic exchange
Abstract
Salmonids bury their eggs in hyporheic streambed gravel, forming an egg
nest, called a redd, characterized by a pit and a hump topography
resembling a dune. Embryos’ survival depends on downwelling oxygen-rich
stream water fluxes, whose magnitudes are expected to depend on the
interactions among redd shape, stream hydraulics, and the hydraulic
conductivity of the streambed sediment. Here, we hypothesize that
downwelling fluxes increase with stream discharge and redd aspect ratio,
and such fluxes can be predicted using a set of dimensionless numbers,
which include the stream flow Reynolds and Froude numbers, the redd
aspect ratio, and the redd relative submergence. We address our goal by
simulating the surface and subsurface flows with numerical hydraulic
models linked through the near-bed pressure distribution quantified with
a two-phase (air-water) two-dimensional surface water computational
fluid dynamics model, validated with flume experiments. We apply the
modeling approach to three redd sizes, which span the observed range in
the field (from ~1 to ~4 m long), and by
increasing discharge from shallow (0.1 m) and slow (0.15 m/s) to deep
(8m) and fast (3.3 m/s). Results support our hypothesis of downwelling
fluxes increasing with discharge and redd aspect ratio due to the
increased near-bed head gradient over the redd. The derived equation may
help evaluate the effect of regulated flow (e.g., hydroelectric and
flood control dams) on redd-induced hyporheic flows.