Biology

A Great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) perched on a buoy at Farmoor Reservoir,

Oxfordshire. As reservoirs may contain stocks of fish, numerous water-bird species may rely on
reservoirs and form habitats near them.

Dams can produce a block for migrating fish, trapping them in one area, producing food and a
habitat for various water-birds. They can also flood various ecosystems on land and may cause
extinctions.

Creating reservoirs can alter the natural biogeochemical cycle of mercury. After a reservoir's
initial formation, there is a large increase in the production of toxic methylmercury (MeHg) via
microbial methylation in flooded soils and peat. MeHg levels have also been found to increase in
zooplankton and in fish.[40][41]

Human impact

Dams can severely reduce the amount of water reaching countries downstream of them, causing
water stress between the countries, e.g. the Sudan and Egypt, which damages farming businesses
in the downstream countries, and reduces drinking water.

Farms and villages, e.g. Ashopton can be flooded by the creation of reservoirs, ruining many
livelihoods. For this very reason, worldwide 80 million people (figure is as of 2009, from the
Edexcel GCSE Geography textbook) have had to be forcibly relocated due to dam construction.

Limnology

The limnology of reservoirs has many similarities to that of lakes of equivalent size. There are
however significant differences.[42] Many reservoirs experience considerable variations in level
producing significant areas that are intermittently underwater or dried out. This greatly limits the
productivity or the water margins and also limits the number of species able to survive in these
conditions.

Upland reservoirs tend to have a much shorter residence time than natural lakes and this can lead
to more rapid cycling of nutrients through the water body so that they are more quickly lost to
the system. This may be seen as a mismatch between water chemistry and water biology with a
tendency for the biological component to be more oligotrophic than the chemistry would suggest.
Conversely, lowland reservoirs drawing water from nutrient rich rivers, may show exaggerated
eutrophic characteristics because the residence time in the reservoir is much greater than in the
river and the biological systems have a much greater opportunity to utilise the available
nutrients.

Deep reservoirs with multiple level draw off towers can discharge deep cold water into the
downstream river greatly reducing the size of any hypolimnion. This in turn can reduce the
concentrations of phosphorus released during any annual mixing event and may therefore reduce
productivity.

The dams in front of reservoirs act as knickpoints-the energy of the water falling from them
reduces and deposition is a result below the dams.[clarification needed]