Building fish ladders at hydropower stations
Hydropower plants create barriers in rivers, limiting the ability of migrating fish species to travel upstream and downstream.
Short facts
- Sweden and Finland
- Migrating fish
- Improve fish migration
- Continuous
Migrating fish like salmon and sea trout face challenges in passing through hydropower stations, impacting their ability to reach spawning areas.
Fish ladders have been constructed at several hydropower stations, including Stornorrfors (Ume River), Hietamankoski, and Leuhunkoski (Kymmene River), to increase passage capacity for migrating fish.
In 2024, over 7,836 salmons and 312 sea trouts passed through the Stornorrfors fish ladder on their way to spawning areas in the river Vindelälven. Additional measures have been taken to facilitate fish migration in the old riverbed downstream of the hydropower plant.
The 300-meter-long ladder was put into operation in 2010. Vattenfall is, in collaboration with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), also analyses how the downstream passage of fish through Stornorrfors can be improved.
More about biodiversity
Biodiversity and nature protection are a priority at Vattenfall. It is one of the focus areas in our environmental policy and therefore also a central part in our environmental work.
See also
Ensuring efficient fish passage: mapping fish using AI
To ensure that the fish passage works efficiently, we initiated a project to test how AI can be used.
Ensuring safe fish passage: guiding fish using pumps
At large hydropower plants, guiding fish is complex and conventional intake racks are often too costly or impractical.
Advancing seabird collision risk assessment: a flight tracking AI project
The EOWDC study shows current tech can’t effectively track seabird 3D flight near wind turbines.