Poseidon

Individual Project-2022

This project was honoured to be selected as one of the works to be exhibited at the NYCxDesign Festival 2023 and the London Design Festival 2023.

The project started with a news report about invasive fish, and after researching further, I found that most fish invasions are only discovered after they have become widespread or have caused damage, and that the existing measures are mostly just a remedy. This got me thinking about the possibility of devising an effective precautionary measure to create a guardian for the water body against unpredictable invasive fish species and the timing of their appearance. The Poseidon project provides a water guard against invasive fish in the form of an artificial predator for lakes, reservoirs and other water bodies.

Design Origion

Catching 'strange fish' at Yunchan Lake, Ruzhou City, Henan Province, China, 25 August 2022

In order to catch 2 Atractosteus spatulas at Yuanchan lake, more than 200,000 cubic metres of lake water was drained and it took almost a month to catch them. The Atractosteus spatula is an invasive species to China and has no natural predators in the country.

What is invasive fish ?

Species that did not have a natural local distribution and have appeared outside their natural range are collectively referred to as nonnative species.

Among nonnative species, if the new environment is not controlled by natural predators, and when combined with vigorous reproduction, then nonnative species become invasive species.

impacts

Decrease in local creatures

Destroying the ecological structure

Cause genetic contamination

Health threats to people

Occupying ecological niches

Economic loss

case study: fisheries in the yellow river basin

The Yellow River basin is the birthplace of Chinese civilization and the earliest developed river, but today the Yellow River is not what it used to be, with fish species declining sharply from 191 in the 1980s to 82, fish catches have also fallen dramatically in recent years, to about 20% of the 1980s level, a contribution of just 0.2% compared to the national figure of over 30 million tonnes.

Changes in the structure of fish assemblages in the Yellow River estuary ecosystem, 1959-2011

Changes in annual sand transport in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, 1950 - 2010

Despite the efforts to improve the water quality and the release of fish fry to improve fish populations, there still seen a decrease in numbers. This is due to the problem that cannot be effectively managed: invasive species. There are already many invasive species in the Yellow River such as the Florida turtle, Brazilian tortoise, sunfish, leatherback catfish, rainbow trout and 41 other species of fish and turtles.

Lao Qi, collect the nets he has placed from the river bank.Yong Ji, ShanXi Province, China, 2022.

''The fish used to be plentiful and their heads would be exposed during the high season, but not anymore, as the Yellow River has Already in a state of chaos''

The Yellow River on the map of China

conclusion

It is difficult to tackle once invasive species become widespread.

Invasive fish are complex chain reactions that need to be analysed from the root cause of how they arise.

More case studies are needed on how the commonalities and differences in existing responses to invasive fishes are manifested and why they are different.

root cause analysis

The analysis of the root causes of the invasion shows that globalised trade is the source, which also matches the data from the charts: The introduction of nonnative creatures exploded in the 1800s thanks to the growth of globalized trade.

Globalised trade is inevitable and complex, so it is difficult to find solutions at this level.

fish invation process analysis

Introduction

Invasive fishes are introduced, intentionally or unintentionally, into waters where the species did not previously occur.

Human abandonment can't be controlled, people release their abandoned fishes into the natural environment. Even if we pass legislation to restrict the entry of specific fishes. These fishes can attach their eggs to other introduced species or ships through pollutants or attachments.

In Mexico, the local fishing industry cooperates with divers to catch lionfish, hunting them one by one with harpoons is the best method, however they now face the problem of not having enough money to continue to do so, and no amount of money can really stop the invasive lionfish in this way, it is only a temporary solution.

Reproduction

Invasive species begin to adapt to the climate and environment of the introduced area and form natural populations under local wild environmental conditions.

At this stage, the small numbers of invasive fishes result in them not being easily detected. Apart from a few giant or distinctive invasive fish, the rest are hard to notice.

existing responses analysis

Artificially hunt

Electronic barrier

In Chicago, electric barriers were constructed on cannals to restrict Asian carp, it's a successful fish deterrent. However, canals is an artificial addition, the main purpose is to strengthening transport, but when coming to a natural water, such a barrier will affect the nomal migrations of all aquatic life.

Stagnation

Invasive fishes begin to build up a certain number of populations, but usually do not spread widely right away, but show a 'stagnant' state. Some species take decades to show invasiveness.

This stage is relatively best suited to human intervention, with large numbers of individuals more easily detected, but how to monitor and identify them will be a new problem.

Artificial release predators

In Massachusetts, one study is attempting to introduce predators (alligtor gar)to limit Asian carp, although there are successful precedents introducing predators to limit invaders, artificially altering the delicate and fragile ecology balance is dangerous. And this is used only when invasive species are widespread.

Dispersal

Invasive fishes spread widely, resulting in an 'ecological' outbreak and causing ecological and economic harm.

At this stage, it becomes very difficult to deal with invasive fishes , which have huge population sizes. The large-scale treatment on them will affects native species. And even if their numbers are limited, the impact they have already had on the environment is difficult to repair completely.

Commercializtion

The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service has attempted to commercialize Asian carp, they trying to get it a new name to have a public makeover to draw more eaters, failed eventually. This method is also difficult in practice with other invasive fish, non-toxicity and be easily caught on a large scale is key.

Insights & Preceived addordance

In order to avoid the impacts of invasive fish, the key is prevention, not remedy after the fact. It is relatively efficient to intervent during the stagnation period, when the invasive fish do not show invasiveness and there is a certain number of populations that can be easily detected. So I intended to create an artificial predator (AUV, autonomous underwater vehicle)to hunt invasive fish. However, some fish like to be in the mud, some like to be in the upper water, some in the lower, but because it is preventative, we cannot predict what kind of fish will invade, we cannot have a specific design for a specific fish habit, so this would be a general solution, based on common fish habits, target on the relatively most invaded freshwater bodies (lakes, reservoirs). With such prerequisites, I started to frame a preceived affordance of my design.