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More About This Title Environmental Flow Assessment - Methods andApplications
English
Provides critiques of current practices for environmental flow assessment and shows how they can be improved, using case studies.
In Environmental Flow Assessment: Methods and Applications, four leading experts critique methods used to manage flows in regulated streams and rivers to balance environmental (instream) and out-of-stream uses of water. Intended for managers as well as practitioners, the book dissects the shortcomings of commonly used approaches, and offers practical advice for selecting and implementing better ones.
The authors argue that methods for environmental flow assessment (EFA) can be defensible as well as practicable only if they squarely address uncertainty, and provide guidance for doing so. Introductory chapters describe the scientific and social reasons that EFA is hard, and provide a brief history. Because management of regulated streams starts with understanding freshwater ecosystems, Environmental Flow Assessment: Methods and Applications includes chapters on flow and organisms in streams. The following chapters assess standard and emerging methods, how they should be tested, and how they should (or should not) be applied. The book concludes with practical recommendations for implementing environmental flow assessment.
- Describes historical and recent trends in environmental flow assessment
- Directly addresses practical difficulties with applying a scientifically informed approach in contentious circumstances
- Serves as an effective introduction to the relevant literature, with many references to articles in related scientific fields
- Pays close attention to statistical issues such as sampling, estimation of statistical uncertainty, and model selection
- Includes recommendations for methods and approaches
- Examines how methods have been tested in the past and shows how they should be tested today and in the future
Environmental Flow Assessment: Methods and Applications is an excellent book for biologists and specialists in allied fields such as engineering, ecology, fluvial geomorphology, environmental planning, landscape architecture, along with river managers and decision makers.
English
John G. Williams,PhD, is an independent scientist who has written influential papers on environmental flow assessment, as well as on a monograph on Chinook salmon, steelhead, and their habitats in California’s Central Valley. He served two terms as an elected director of a powerful water management district and was special master for an important legal case concerning environmental flows.
Peter B. Moyle, PhD, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology and the Center for Watershed Sciences, University of California Davis. He has been studying the effects of altered flows on fish since the 1970s.
J. Angus Webb, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the Water, Environment and Agriculture Program within the Melbourne School of Engineering, University of Melbourne. He has particular expertise in the monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive management of environmental flow programs.
G. Mathias Kondolf, PhD, is a Professor in the Departments of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning and Geography, University of California Berkeley, and fellow of the Collegium, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Lyon. His expertise is in fluvial geomorphology, environmental planning, and river restoration.
English
About the Editors
Series Foreword
Preface
1 An introduction to environmental flows
Summary
What are environmental flows
Why EFA Is So Hard; Scientific Issues
Stream ecosystems are dynamic and open
Fish evolve
Streams adjust
Climate changes
Populations vary
Habitat selection is conditional
Spatial and temporal scales matter
Why EFA is So Hard: Social Issues
Social objectives evolve
Science and dispute resolution
Water is valuable
Managers or clients often want the impossible
Why is EFA so hard: problems with the literature
Why is EFA so hard: limitations of models and objective methods
Models and environmental flow assessment
Objective and subjective methods
Conclusions
2 A brief history of environmental flow assessment
Summary’
Introduction
The legal basis for environmental flow
The scope of environmental flow assessments
Methods for setting environmental flows
Conclusions
3 A Primer on Flow in Rivers and Streams
Summary
Introduction
Precipitation and runoff
Flow regimes
Describing or depicting flow regimes
Variation in flow regimes across climates and regions
Anthropogenic changes in flow regimes
Hydrologic classifications
Spatial patterns and variability within streams
Spatial complexity of flow within stream channels
The variety of channel forms
Lateral connectivity with floodplain and off-channel water bodies
Bed topography and hyporheic exchange
Managing environmental flows
Conclusions
4 Life in and around streams
Summary
Introduction
Structure of stream ecosystems
Across-channel gradients
Upstream-downstream gradient
Adaptations of stream organisms
Morphological Adaptations
Physiological adaptations
Behavioral adaptations
Adapting to extreme flows.
Synthesis
Environmental flows and fish assemblages
Conclusions
5 Tools for environmental flow assessment
Summary
Introduction
Descriptive tools
Graphical tools and images
Stream Classifications
Habitat classifications
Species classifications
Methods classifications
Literature reviews
Experiments
Flow experiments
Laboratory experiments
Thought experiments
Professional opinion
Causal criteria
Statistics
Sampling
Sampling methods
Hypothesis testing
Model selection and averaging
Resampling algorithms
Modeling
Environment‐abundance relations
Habitat association models
Drift–foraging models
Capability models
Bayesian networks
Hierarchical Bayesian models
Dynamic occupancy models
State‐dependent life‐history models and dynamic energy budget models
Hydraulic models
Hydrological models
Temperature models
Sediment transport models
Other uses of models in EFA
Hydraulic habitat indies
Hydrological indices
Conclusions
6 Environmental flow methods
Summary
Introduction
Hydrologic, habitat rating, habitat simulation, and holistic methods
Top–down and bottom–up approaches
Sample–based methods and whole system methods
Standard–setting and incremental approaches
Micro–, meso–, and river–scale methods
Opinion–based and model–based methods
Hydrological methods
The Tennant Method and its relatives
Indicators of Hydraulic Alteration (IHA)
Hydraulic rating methods
Habitat simulation methods
Habitat Association Models
Bioenergetic or drift foraging models
Frameworks for EFA
Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IFIM)
Downstream response to imposed flow transformation (DRIFT)
Ecological limits of hydraulic alteration (ELOHA)
Adaptive management
Conclusions
7 Good modeling practice for EFA
Summary
Introduction
Modeling practice
What are the purposes of the modeling?
How should you think about the natural system being assessed?
How will the available budget be distributed over modeling efforts, or between modeling and data collection, or between the assessment and subsequent monitoring?
How will the uncertainty in the results of the modeling be estimated and communicated?
How will the model and model development be documented?
How will the models be tested?
How good is good enough to be useful?
Who will use the results of the modeling, and how will they be used?
Do you really need a model?
Behavioral issues in modeling for EFA
Data-dependent activities in developing models
Sampling
General Considerations
Spatial scale issues in sampling
Cleaning data sets
On testing models
The purpose of testing models
Why testing models can be hard
The problem with validation
The limited utility of significance tests
Tests should depend on the nature of the method being applied
Models should be tested multiple ways
The importance of plausibility
The importance of testing models with independent data
The quality of the data limits the quality of the tests
The importance of replication
Models should be tested against other models
Experimental tests of models
Flow experiments
Behavioral carrying capacity tests
Virtual ecosystem experiments
Testing models with knowledge
Testing hydraulic models
Testing EFMs based on projessional judgement
Testing species distribution models
Goodness of fit
Prevalence
Imperfect detection
Spatial scale and other complications
Conclusions
8 Dams and Channel Morphology
Summary
Introduction
Diagnosing the problem and setting objectives
Managing sediment load
Existing dams
Proposed dams
Obsolete dams
Specifying morphogenic flows
Three common approaches to setting morphogenic flows
Clear objectives needed
Magnitude
Duration
The hydrograph
Seasonality
Recurrence
Flows for managing vegetation in channels
Constraints
Minimizing cost of foregone power production and other uses of water
Preserving spawning gravels
Preventing flooding and bank erosion
Conclusions
9 Improving the use of existing evidence and expert opinion in environmental flow assessments
Summary
Introduction
Overview of proposed method
Basic principles and background to steps
Literature as a basis of an evidence-based conceptual model
Translate the conceptual model into the structure of a Bayesian Belief Network
Quantify causal relationships in the BBN using formal expert elicitation
Update causal relationships using empirical data
Case study: golden perch (Macquaria ambigua) in the regulated Goulburn River, south-eastern Australia
Evidence based conceptual model of golden perch responses to flow variation
Bayesian Belief Network structure of the golden perch model
Expert-based quantification of effects of flow and non-flow drivers on golden perch
Inclusion of monitoring data to update the golden perch BBN
Discussion
Hierarchical Bayesian methods as best-practice
Piggy-backing on existing knowledge
Resourcing improved practice
Accessibility of methods
Summary
10 Summary conclusions and recommendations
Conclusions and recommendations
A checklist for EFA
