Defensible methods of assessing fish habitat : physical habitat assessment and modelling of the coastal areas of the lower Great Lakes / prepared by W.F. Baird & Associates for Great Lakes Laboratory for...: Fs97-4/2370E-PDF

"The Fisheries Act prohibits the harmful Alteration, Disruption or Destruction (HADD) of fish habitat unless authorized by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. Authorization of a HADD is usually conditional on the implementation of certain compensatory measures to achieve a "no net loss" in the productive capacity of fish habitat. Procedures now exist to quantify the impacts of physical changes on productive capacity. These procedures allow the evaluation of pre- and post-development scenarios, including any compensatory measures. In this report, these procedures are applied to two case studies consisting of the construction of a 150 m long headland at LaSalle Park Marina on Hamilton Harbour, and the construction of marina breakwaters for the Bronte Outer Harbour. The investigations have focused on evaluating the indirectly modified areas, that is, those areas affected by changes to wave and current patterns caused by the presence of the new development. In these areas, impacts are not necessarily immediate and may occur very slowly through time. For exposed Great Lakes conditions, such as exist at Bronte Outer Harbour, important considerations in the evaluation of indirect changes to productive habitat capacity include the potential for fillet beach development (resulting in future areas of lost habitat) and the potential for macrophyte colonization of created marina basins. For more sheltered sites such as LaSalle Park on Hamilton Harbour, techniques to describe wave refraction and diffraction must be applied to determine the extent of the indirect area of impact and the potential changes to macrophyte coverage. A new criterion for the limiting local wave conditions associated with the survival of macrophytes has been proposed and recommendations are provided to refine and substantiate such a criterion"--Abstract, page v.

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