Environmental flows and water governance: managing sustainable water uses

Pahl‐Wostl, Claudia; Arthington, Angela; Bogárdi, János J.; Bunn, Stuart E.; Hoff, Holger; Lebel, Louis; Nikitina, Elena; Palmer, Margaret A.; Poff, N. LeRoy; Richards, Keith; Schlüter, Maja; Schulze, R. E.; St‐Hilaire, André; Tharme, Rebecca E.; Tockner, Klement; Tsegai, Daniel W.

doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2013.06.009

Cited by 217 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…At the moment, we cannot possibly address this new research agenda, and we have limited ourselves to the quantification of EFRs as a function of biophysical parameters. However, we acknowledge that there is a need for a more systematic EF method that would link the natural and social science fronts and create a unifying framework for the assessment and implementation of sustainable EFRs in national water policies (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2013). Additional efforts are required to develop a systematic regional environmental flow framework based on multi-disciplinary methods (Poff et al, 2009;Pahl-Wostl et al, 2013).…”

Section: Social Aspects Of Environmental Flow Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, we acknowledge that there is a need for a more systematic EF method that would link the natural and social science fronts and create a unifying framework for the assessment and implementation of sustainable EFRs in national water policies (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2013). Additional efforts are required to develop a systematic regional environmental flow framework based on multi-disciplinary methods (Poff et al, 2009;Pahl-Wostl et al, 2013). Addressing EFRs, which is part of a proactive management of river basins, is certainly a less costly solution than using reactive solutions such as river restoration measures (Palmer et al, 2008).…”

Section: Social Aspects Of Environmental Flow Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Accounting for environmental flow requirements in global water assessments

Pastor

Ludwig

Biemans

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

360

261

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Abstract. As the water requirement for food production and other human needs grows, quantification of environmental flow requirements (EFRs) is necessary to assess the amount of water needed to sustain freshwater ecosystems. EFRs are the result of the quantification of water necessary to sustain the riverine ecosystem, which is calculated from the mean of an environmental flow (EF) method. In this study, five EF methods for calculating EFRs were compared with 11 case studies of locally assessed EFRs. We used three existing methods (Smakhtin, Tennant, and Tessmann) and two newly developed methods (the variable monthly flow method (VMF) and the Q 90 _Q 50 method). All methods were compared globally and validated at local scales while mimicking the natural flow regime. The VMF and the Tessmann methods use algorithms to classify the flow regime into high, intermediate, and low-flow months and they take into account intra-annual variability by allocating EFRs with a percentage of mean monthly flow (MMF). The Q 90 _Q 50 method allocates annual flow quantiles (Q 50 and Q 90 ) depending on the flow season. The results showed that, on average, 37 % of annual discharge was required to sustain environmental flow requirement. More water is needed for environmental flows during low-flow periods (46-71 % of average low-flows) compared to high-flow periods (17-45 % of average high-flows). Environmental flow requirements estimates from the Tennant, Q 90 _Q 50 , and Smakhtin methods were higher than the locally calculated EFRs for river systems with relatively stable flows and were lower than the locally calculated EFRs for rivers with variable flows. The VMF and Tessmann methods showed the highest correlation with the locally calculated EFRs (R 2 = 0.91). The main difference between the Tessmann and VMF methods is that the Tessmann method allocates all water to EFRs in low-flow periods while the VMF method allocates 60 % of the flow in low-flow periods. Thus, other water sectors such as irrigation can withdraw up to 40 % of the flow during the low-flow season and freshwater ecosystems can still be kept in reasonable ecological condition. The global applicability of the five methods was tested using the global vegetation and the LundPotsdam-Jena managed land (LPJmL) hydrological model. The calculated global annual EFRs for fair ecological conditions represent between 25 and 46 % of mean annual flow (MAF). Variable flow regimes, such as the Nile, have lower EFRs (ranging from 12 to 48 % of MAF) than stable tropical regimes such as the Amazon (which has EFRs ranging from 30 to 67 % of MAF).

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Section: Social Aspects Of Environmental Flow Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Aspects Of Environmental Flow Requirementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for environmental flow requirements in global water assessments

Pastor

Ludwig

Biemans

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

360

261

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Public awareness and social movements are increasingly taking on board the concept of ecosystem services (Alexander et al 2016) and emerging governance systems that accept demands and perspectives that historically have been marginalized (Pahl-Wostl et al 2013). The decommissioning of the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams represents an important precedent for progressive water management and the evolution of the perception of dams as a method of achieving social-ecological resilience.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolving conceptions of the role of large dams in social-ecological resilience

Hammersley¹,

Scott²,

Gimblett³

2018

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Rivers and riparian ecosystems have historically provided a range of beneficial goods and services to human societies. However, floodplains have also posed risks to the humans that came to rely upon them. Although riparian areas are among the most resource-rich and biodiverse ecosystems, they are also some of the most disturbed by human activity. Today, social and economic needs for water diverted off-stream are often pitted against the flow of water needed to maintain crucial instream ecological functions. The construction of dams has been a widely implemented method to control rivers for human purposes, particularly in the western United States. However, there is a growing movement to decommission dams, as stakeholders begin to recognize the ultimate value of restoring ecosystem services, including cultural ecosystem services; indeed, their restoration may be necessary to ensure lasting systemic resilience. Broader questions of dam decommissioning in the United States are receiving increasing attention by scholars and practitioners alike. In this paper, we adapt and apply seminal concepts from the adaptive cycle framework and cultural ecosystem services, particularly for Native Nations, and thereby assess the unfolding case of decommissioning and restoration on the Elwha River in northwest Washington State. The empirical evidence indicates that dam removal coincided with scalar and temporal alignment of multiple adaptive cycles and contributed to both short and long-term resilience. Further, the Elwha case represents an extremely important precedent in the evolution of river management practices, in which stakeholder-based collaborative governance incorporated knowledge coproduction and regulatory maneuvering to successfully overcome obstacles inherent in both dam decommissioning and subsequent restoration. We conclude by reflecting on lessons of broader relevance beyond the specific case of the Elwha.

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“…Where these do exist the specific operating rules of reservoirs need to be included in any model and these can have a major influence on downstream flow, depending on the primary use for power generation, dry-season irrigation or stabilising river flow for riverine transport. Although a higher F p value will in most cases be desirable (and a decrease in F p undesirable), we may expect that in an ecological perspective on watershed health, the change in low flows that can occur in the flow regime of degrading and intensively managed watersheds alike, depending on the management rules for reservoirs, is at least as relevant as changes in flood risks, as many aquatic organisms thrive during floods (Pahl-Wostl et al, 2013;. Downstream biota can be expected to have adapted to the pre-human flow conditions, inherent F p and variability.…”

Section: Saliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Flood risk reduction and flow buffering as ecosystem services – Part 1: Theory on flow persistence, flashiness and base flow

Noordwijk

Tanika²,

Lusiana³

2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Flood damage reflects insufficient adaptation of human presence and activity to location and variability of river flow in a given climate. Flood risk increases when landscapes degrade, counteracted or aggravated by engineering solutions. Efforts to maintain and restore buffering as an ecosystem function may help adaptation to climate change, but this require quantification of effectiveness in their specific social-ecological context. However, the specific role of forests, trees, soil and drainage pathways in flow buffering, given geology, land form and climate, remains controversial. When complementing the scarce heavily instrumented catchments with reliable long-term data, especially in the tropics, there is a need for metrics for data-sparse conditions. We present and discuss a flow persistence metric that relates transmission to river flow of peak rainfall events to the base-flow component of the water balance. The dimensionless flow persistence parameter F p is defined in a recursive flow model and can be estimated from limited time series of observed daily flow, without requiring knowledge of spatially distributed rainfall upstream. The F p metric (or its change over time from what appears to be the local norm) matches local knowledge concepts. Inter-annual variation in the F p metric in sample watersheds correlates with variation in the "flashiness index" used in existing watershed health monitoring programmes, but the relationship between these metrics varies with context. Inter-annual variation in F p also correlates with common base-flow indicators, but again in a way that varies between watersheds. Further exploration of the responsiveness of F p in watersheds with different characteristics to the interaction of land cover and the specific realisation of space-time patterns of rainfall in a limited observation period is needed to evaluate interpretation of F p as an indicator of anthropogenic changes in watershed conditions.

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Environmental flows and water governance: managing sustainable water uses

Cited by 217 publications

References 49 publications

Accounting for environmental flow requirements in global water assessments

Accounting for environmental flow requirements in global water assessments

Evolving conceptions of the role of large dams in social-ecological resilience

Flood risk reduction and flow buffering as ecosystem services – Part 1: Theory on flow persistence, flashiness and base flow

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