Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fisheries Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ fishres Declining fisheries and increasing prices: The economic cost of tropical rivers impoundment Maria Alice Leite Lima a,b, ⁎ , Adriana Rosa Carvalho c , Marcus Alexandre Nunes d , Ronaldo Angelini e , Carolina Rodrigues da Costa Doria a a Laboratory of Ichthyology and Fisheries, Federal University of Rondônia, Porto Velho, 76801-059, Brazil b Postgraduate Program in Regional Development and Environment (PGDRA), Federal University of Rondônia, Porto Velho, 76801-059, Brazil c Department of Ecology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, 59078-970, Brazil d Department of Statistics, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, 59078-970, Brazil e Department of Civil Engineering, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, 59078-970, Brazil ARTICLE INFO Handled by A.E. Punt Keywords: Amazon Fisheries Structural breaks Impoundment effects Price dynamics ABSTRACT This work tests the null hypothesis that the coefficients of the total landings, landed values, mean catches and price per kg of migratory and resident species are constant over time following the installation of two large run- of-the-river hydroelectric dams in a large tropical river. To identify shifts in catches and economic returns due to river impoundment, we inspected daily landing data (25-year time series) and wholesale prices (19-year time series) for the Madeira River, the largest tributary of the Amazon River. Our results show that the period of decreasing catches and increasing prices observed for fisheries in the Madeira River matched the timings of the construction of the two dams. According to the results, both dams quickly changed catches and fish supply to market, which were immediately echoed in the price per kg of exploited fish species. Following the dam con- struction, prices rose for both fish that became scarce and fish that became abundant. Though catches declined 58% in 25 years, the price increased 49% over the same period, representing a high economic cost for the local population. Further, there was a clear decline in the catches of some species (e.g., the dourada and the curimatã), but increased catches of others (e.g., the sardine and the tucunaré). Moreover, some fluctuation patterns across years showed natural oscillations, or changes, in local habitats and even fishing efforts. 1. Introduction Fisheries production in large tropical rivers is a key ecosystem ser- vice to human welfare and an important component of biodiversity supplying global economic value, markedly to developing countries (Balmford et al., 2002; Costanza et al., 1997). The exploitation of such biodiversity despite benefiting many people, has changed natural eco- systems leading to losses in biodiversity and ecosystem services, threatening the well-being of social groups more susceptible to poverty. As a result, over the last century, freshwater biodiversity has plum- meted globally (Sala et al., 2000), mainly due to river impoundment that negatively impacts the ecosystem (Dudgeon et al., 2006; Lima et al., 2017; Santos et al., 2018), its biological diversity and local fish stocks (Agostinho et al., 2008; Bunn and Arthington, 2002; Pelicice et al., 2017). Notwithstanding these effects, at the end of 2000’s about 45,000 large dams (15 m in height) and 800,000 small dams had been built worldwide (WCD, 2000). In tropical areas, large impoundments keep growing and being considered as development actions (Hoeinghaus et al., 2009), continuously adding pressure on rich biological diversity (Agostinho et al., 2005). The Amazon basin has been affected by this trend and currently has 416 hydroelectric power plants in operation or under accelerated construction, and 334 are planned (Winemiller et al., 2016). The consequences of the rushed development and construction of these plants include underestimation of the disruption on the resi- lience of local ecosystems and of impacts on the livelihoods of local fishing communities (Santos et al., 2018). The recent development of large-scale infrastructure projects, such as roads, waterways, mines, and hydroelectric dams, has threatened fisheries in Amazonian aquatic ecosystems (Lees et al., 2016), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fishres.2019.105399 Received 26 April 2019; Received in revised form 29 September 2019; Accepted 30 September 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Postgraduate Program in Regional Development and Environment (PGDRA), Federal University of Rondônia, Porto Velho, 76801-059, Brazil. E-mail addresses: alicelima.lima@gmail.com (M.A. Leite Lima), acarvalho.ufrn@gmail.com (A. Rosa Carvalho), marcus.nunes@gmail.com (M. Alexandre Nunes), ronangelini@gmail.com (R. Angelini), carolinarcdoria@gmail.com (C. Rodrigues da Costa Doria). Fisheries Research 221 (2020) 105399 0165-7836/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T