Realm: Marine
Climate: Temperate
Biome: Temperate shelf and seas ecoregions
Central latitude: 25.244306
Central longitude: 121.624306
Duration: 15 years, from 2000 to 2014

3722 records

335 distinct species

Across the time series Diodon holocanthus is the most frequently occurring species

Methods

The impinged fish community data were collected from the 1st Nuclear Power Plant at Shihmen (25? 17_9_ N. 121? 35_ 10_ E) and the 2nd Nuclear Power Plant at Yehliu (25? 12_ 10_ N. 121? 39_ 45_ E) which isabout 17 km apart eastward from the 1st. Both plants are situated on the northern coast of Taiwan(Fig. 1). The average generating capacity and the combined water flow velocity of the first plant is4.680 J and 69 m3 s _ 1. and those of the second plant is 7.056 J and 80 m3 s _ 1. There was no change inoperation that can result in significant changes in the pumped volume. so the combined water flow wasconstant over years. However. each generator was shut down for maintenance in turn for about onemonth during winter to spring seasons. which causes the combined water flow velocity to decrease 50%.The sample was collected in opportune days in order to avoid sampling during the maintenance period.Over 6.000.000 m3 of water. taken from the near-shore waters off northeastern Taiwan. was used monthlyby these two nuclear power plants.The intake of the first plant was built on a straighter shoreline than that of the second plant. which islocated in an open bay along the Yehliu Cape. The sea floors around both intakes are a mixture of coral reefs. gravel. large boulders and sandy patches. From July 1987 to April 1990 and from September 2000 toDecember 2014 (except for December in 2006 and 2007 at both plants. and January 2007 at the 1st plant).fish samples were collected monthly from the intake screens at both plants for 24 h (from 9 AM to 9 AM)on the date chosen by a systematic sampling method14. The mesh size of the intake screen is20.32 cm _ 10.16 cm. An oblique bar screen in front of the spur rack was used to prevent heavy debrissuch as logs. Debris and fishes that were washed off the traveling screens by operating the rotatorymachine only when the transported material had accumulated to a certain amount. The impingedmaterial and fish on the 1 cm_ 1 cm mesh (fish smaller than this size. i.e.. fish eggs and larval fishes. maypass through and become entrained) were flushed into a sluice-way and collected in a trash basketsuspended outside the pumping house. The waters was returned to the intake bay through the dischargesluice-way. All the fish collected were brought back to the laboratory for sorting. identification andcounting. The fish were identified by Doctor Kwang-Tsao Shao and the senior laboratory members usingplenty of handbooks of field guide and identification keys. Sampling method and species identificationprocess was constant over years.The samples collected up to April 1990 were recorded as presence-absence data only. From September2000 on. the samples were recorded quantitatively. i.e.. the number of fish of each species was recorded.As the geographical features of the two intakes are similar to each other. we may treat the monthlysamples from both intakes as two replicates. Unit of abundance = IndCountInt, Unit of biomass = NA

Citation(s)

Chen, H., Liao, Y.-C., Chen, C.-Y., Tsai, J.-I., Chen, L.-S. & Shao, K.-T. (2015) Long-term monitoring dataset of fish assemblages impinged at nuclear power plants in northern Taiwan. Scientific data, 2, 150071.