Monitoring water bodies related to El Quimbo Dam, Huila, Colombia Internship report by: Juan Manuel Peña Reyes (760926651030) Program: Master of Aquaculture and Marine Resources Management, Wageningen University & Research Centre Course code: AEW 70424 Report number: P 548 Chair group: Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Supervisors: Francisco Torres (Fundación Natura, Colombia) Edwin Peeters (Wageningen University & Research, the Netherlands) 2019 Beneficiario COLFUTURO 2015 I Preface To fulfil the requirements of the MAM program, an internship was performed in agreement with Wageningen University (the Netherlands) and the Fundación Natura (Colombia). In the Netherlands, I did my master thesis with the Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management group of Wageningen University, the thesis was titled, “Effect of individual and group situations on the antipredatory response behavior of the crustacean prey, Gammarus pulex”. After finishing the master thesis, I travelled to Colombia, my home country, and it was there that I visited the Fundación Natura. The Fundación Natura is a colombian organization of civil society, devoted to the conservation, use and management of biodiversity for the generation of social, economic and environmental benefit, in the framework of human sustainable development. In 2020, the Fundación Natura will be national leader in conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity, with international recognition for their contributions through participative and innovative processes aiming at the balance between development and conservation. The Fundación Natura has been working in Colombia for 35 years, developing partnerships with other national and international organizations, such as the IUCN, the Environmental National Forum, Mangrove Action Project, the United Nations and Enel- Emgesa. The work areas in the Fundación Natura include the integral management of climate change, ecological restoration, sustainable forest management, management of river basins, resources management, education, generation of knowledge about biodiversity and communication of information. It was in the Fundación Natura that I knew about the Restoration Project of Tropical Dry Forest, which has been taking place around El Quimbo Dam, in the Department of Huila, Colombia. I realized that I could do an interesting internship work, as part of the Restoration Project of Tropical Dry Forest, and I proposed the idea of performing monitorings on water bodies related to El Quimbo Dam. I knew that I could develop this idea and turn it into a master work, with the important orientation of supervisors from the Fundación Natura and Wageningen University. I would like to thank Francisco Torres, manager of the Restoration Project of Tropical Dry Forest in the Fundación Natura and Dr. Edwin Peeters, professor at the chairgroup Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management of Wageningen University, for supervising my internship in Colombia, your help was very important to bring this internship to fruition, thank you very much to both. Also, thanks to Wageningen University for giving me the opportunity to finish successfully my master study of Aquaculture and Marine Resources Management. Thanks to the Fundación Natura for giving me the opportunity of having my first professional work experience in an environmental organization in Colombia. Thanks to my colleagues of Fundación Natura who accompanied me during my field excursions, thank you very much to all for their support and good energy during this internship experience. II Summary A monitoring was performed around water bodies associated to the El Quimbo Dam that is located on the Magdalena river, at the south of Huila Department, Colombia. This monitoring study was part of the Ecological Restoration Project of Tropical Dry Forest that is being executed by the Fundación Natura and Enel-Emgesa, which are joining efforts to restore ecosystems that have been affected by the construction of El Quimbo Dam. The construction of El Quimbo Dam began in February, 2011 and the dam was opened in 2015. It is suggested that construction of dams has caused upstream/downstream environmental impacts along river continuums, for example, along the Magdalena-Cauca basin. The Fundación Natura and Enel-Emgesa have been taking measures to mitigate the environmental impacts of El Quimbo Dam´s construction. One of these measures has been the reforestation of 40 km2 of vegetation, to compensate the loss of 30 km2 of vegetation that was cut down to construct the dam. The reforestation, performed by people from the Fundación Natura and Enel-Emgesa, is being developed in three specific zones around El Quimbo Dam. In 2016, the Fundación Natura performed previous studies of biotic and abiotic characterization of water reservoirs located in these three specific zones. Afterwards, in 2017, researchers from the Universidad Surcolombiana and Enel-Emgesa performed water quality studies on water bodies located in the high basin of Magdalena River. The present internship aimed at supplementing those studies executed in 2016 and 2017. During the present internship, biotic and abiotic aspects were analysed in 16 new water bodies to answer the following questions: -Are there differences in animal diversity among the 16 water bodies studied?. -Is there similarity in the vegetation composition among the 16 water bodies?. -Are there differences in abiotic conditions among the water bodies monitored? The 16 water bodies comprised 3 lakes and 13 streams. For all these water bodies, a field form was used, which consisted in a table organized in 8 columns. Each column contained data of depth, degree of shading, color of water, substrate, vegetation, fauna, water discharge (in the streams) and wind presence (in the lakes). A Shannon index was calculated to measure the fauna diversity along the 16 water bodies located around El Quimbo Dam. For vegetation, the number of trees was counted among the water bodies to find the richest ones in numbers of tree species. Analyses of similarity in composition of tree species were performed between pairs of water bodies as a well as a likely estimation of the most abundant tree species. Finally, environmental impacts of human activities were related to the animal diversity and abiotic aspects observed in the water bodies. III Contents Preface……………………………………………………………………………………………..I Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………..III 1. Introduction………………………………………………………...................................1 2. Material & Methods………………………………………………………………….........4 2.1. Sampling locations……………………………………………………………………4 2.2. Data taking…………………………………………………………………………….5 2.3. Measurements………………………………………………………………………...6 3. Results ……………………………………………………………………………………..7 Table 1. Abiotic conditions of water bodies………………………………………….…7 Table 2. Environmental impacts of human activities on water bodies…………......10 Table 3. Vegetation species registered in the water bodies………………………...16 Table 4. Animal species registered in the water bodies……………………………..18 3.1. Statistical Analyses………………………………………………………………….20 3.2. Appendix section…………………………………………………………………….25 4. Discussion………………………………………………………………………………...40 5. Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………....42 6. Reflection about my internship in Colombia………………………………………….43 7. References…………………………………………………………………………….....44 1 1. Introduction El Quimbo Dam is a concrete faced rock-fill structure and hydroelectric project located at the south of Huila department, on the Magdalena River, around the towns of Gigante, Garzón, Paicol, Tesalia, Altamira and El Agrado, Colombia (Figure 1). Figure 1. Hydroelectric project of El Quimbo Dam The towns of Gigante and Paicol are at the north whereas El Agrado and Garzón are at the south of the Huila Department. The dark blue line is the Magdalena River; the light blue area belongs to El Quimbo Dam (Embalse El Quimbo); the light green region is the biotic compensation area, and inside the compensation area, the small dark green spots are the compensation area for the Restoration Pilot Plan (IGAC, Enel-Emgesa, Fundación Natura, 2011). 2 El Quimbo Dam´s structure is of 151 m high and 632 m long, it was built by the organization Enel-Emgesa, with a cost $837 millions. El Quimbo Dam´s construction began in February, 2011 and finished in 2015. The dam generates 2216 GWh-hours (7980 TJ/year) from a power station of 400 MW, a reservoir of 1824 million cubic meters and an inundated area of 8250 hectares. The dam contributes 8% of energy of Colombia (UNFCC, 2011 and Enel, 2018). El Quimbo Dam is located in the Magdalena-Cauca basin, which extends 1528 km through the western side of Colombia (SIAC, 2011) and holds the 84% of hydroelectric plants, which are built at different altitudes in the Andean mountain range (Jimenez, et al, 2014). It is suggested that the positional altitude of a dam has effects on population dynamics of fish, for example, it is stated that dam waters below 700 m of altitude affect the conservation status of migratory fish species in the Magdalena-Cauca basin (Jimenez, et al, 2014). According to the Serial Discontinuity Concept (SDC), the construction of dams result in upstream-downstream changes in biotic and abiotic patterns along river continuums (Stanford & Ward, 2001). In the Magdalena-Cauca basin, the construction of dams have resulted in upstream-downstream changes in abiotic and biotic patterns, and such changes have been the Magdalena River´s deviation; modification of water courses; shifts in fish migration routes;