Synthesizing Environmental Flow Needs Data for Water Management in a Water-Scarce State: The Arizona Environmental Water Demands Database

2014 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 234-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. E. Mott Lacroix ◽  
B. C. Xiu ◽  
J. B. Nadeau ◽  
S. B. Megdal
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Environmental Water ◽  
Environmental Flow ◽  
Water Demands ◽  
Water Scarce

scholarly journals Perspective: The challenge of ecologically sustainable water management

Water Policy ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 475-479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Bernhardt ◽  
StuartE. Bunn ◽  
David D. Hart ◽  
Björn Malmqvist ◽  
Timo Muotka ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Water Resource ◽  
Water Resource Management ◽  
Environmental Water ◽  
Sustainable Water Management ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Water Demands ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable

Sustainable water resource management is constrained by three pervasive myths; that societal and environmental water demands always compete with one another; that technological solutions can solve all water resource management problems; and that environmental solutions to protect and maintain freshwater resources are more expensive and less dependable than technological solutions. We argue that conservation and good stewardship of water resources can go a long way toward meeting societal demands and values. Furthermore, water requirements to sustain ecosystem health and biodiversity in rivers and their associated coastal systems can be well aligned with options for human use and deliver a suite of ecosystem goods and services to society. However, to achieve ecologically sustainable water management, we propose several key issues that must be addressed. The objective of this opinion paper is to stimulate discussion across traditional discipline boundaries with the aim of forging new partnerships and collaborations to meet this pressing challenge of ecologically sustainable water management.

scholarly journals Securing the Environmental Water Requirements of Seasonally Ponding Wetlands: Partnering Science and Management Through Benefit Sharing

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Barchiesi ◽  
Antonio Camacho ◽  
Eva Hernández ◽  
Anis Guelmami ◽  
Flavio Monti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Water ◽  
Environmental Flow ◽  
Productive Efficiency ◽  
Benefit Sharing ◽  
Water Requirements ◽  
Governance Capacity ◽  
Socioeconomic System ◽  
Science Management ◽  
Institutional Actor ◽  
Water Scarce

Abstract Although environmental flow regime assessments are becoming increasingly holistic, they rarely provoke water managers to enact the adaptive water reallocation mechanisms required to secure environmental water for wetlands. The conditions that cause science-based environmental flow assessments to succeed or fail in informing the management of environmental water requirements remain unclear. To begin to resolve these conditions, we used process tracing to deconstruct the sequence of activities required to manage environmental water in four case studies of seasonally ponding wetlands in Mediterranean and Mesoamerican watersheds. We hypothesized that, when the flexibility and equitability of the socioeconomic system do not match the complexity of the biophysical system, this leads to a failure of managers to integrate scientific guidance in their allocation of environmental water. Diagnostic evidence gathered indicates that science-management partnerships are essential to align institutional flexibility and socioeconomic equitability with the system’s ecohydrological complexity, and thus move from determination to reallocation of environmental water. These results confirm that institutions e.g., river basin organizations need to be supplemented by motivated actors with experience and skill to negotiate allocation and adaptive management of environmental water. These institutional-actor synergies are likely to be especially important in water scarce regions when the need to accommodate extreme hydrological conditions is not met by national governance capacity. We conclude by focusing on benefit sharing as a means to better describe the conditions for successful science-based environmental flow assessments that realize productive efficiency in environmental water allocation i.e., recognition of multiple values for both people and ecosystems.

Use of reclaimed water in the recreation and restoration of aquatic ecosystems: practical experience in the Costa Brava region (Girona, Spain)

2008 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Sala ◽  
S. Romero de Tejada
Keyword(s):  
Aquatic Ecosystems ◽  
Reclaimed Water ◽  
Environmental Water ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Indirect Benefits ◽  
Water Demands ◽  
Bird Watching ◽  
Trophic Webs ◽  
Costa Brava ◽  
Practical Recommendations

Where there is water scarcity, the situation is dramatic for aquatic ecosystems. In many Mediterranean basins the exploitation of water resources has gone clearly beyond renewable level and affects aquatic ecosystems. Thus, they may benefit from the recycling of high-quality effluents that can be used to cope with environmental water demands instead of being discharged. Their reclamation with natural technologies produces an improvement in quality based on the development of trophic webs built upon nutrients still dissolved in the reclaimed water. The main project in the Costa Brava area is that of the Empuriabrava constructed wetland system, where nitrified effluent is further treated to reduce the concentration of nutrients in the water and is reused for environmental enhancement. This facility is also an interesting site for bird-watching. Other projects where water recycling produces indirect benefits on the aquatic ecosystems are those in Tossa de Mar, affecting the “temporary” Tossa Creek (a watercourse which flows on temporary basis according to rainfall patterns), and in the Aro Valley, affecting the also “temporary”, but slightly bigger, Ridaura River. This document summarizes these projects and proposes practical recommendations for the use of treated effluents in the recreation and restoration of aquatic ecosystems.

Improving efficiency in water use and conservation in Spanish hotels

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 273-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Cobacho ◽  
F. Arregui ◽  
J.C. Parra ◽  
E. Cabrera
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Water Use ◽  
Water Conservation ◽  
Fundamental Component ◽  
Conservation Actions ◽  
Water Scarce

Hotels are a fundamental component within the tourist Spanish sector, and their role in water management turns out even more relevant taking into account the fact that tourist areas, in which they are generally located, are water scarce. Trying to go further from the standard ratios and estimations to plan water conservation, this work intends to really measure and quantify water use in rooms. Only by doing this, can subsequent conservation actions, now able to be reliably specified for each specific use, achieve a real success.

Future Climatic Patterns and Sustainability of Current Cropping Patterns in a Water-Scarce River Basin of Eastern India 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Smaranika Mahapatra ◽  
Madan Kumar Jha
Keyword(s):  
Water Demand ◽  
Agricultural Sector ◽  
Monsoon Rainfall ◽  
Baseline Period ◽  
Eastern India ◽  
Crop Water ◽  
Cropping Patterns ◽  
Water Demands ◽  
Crop Water Demand ◽  
Water Scarce

<p>Agricultural sector, being the largest consumer of water is greatly affected by climatic variability and disasters. Most parts of the world already face an enormous challenge in meeting competitive and conflicting multi-sector water demands. Climate change has further exacerbated this challenge by putting the sustainability of current cropping patterns and irrigation practices in question. For ensuring climate-resilient food production, it is crucial to examine the patterns of the projected climate and potential impacts on the agricultural sector at a basin scale. Hence, this study was carried out for an already water-scarce basin, Rushikulya River basin (RRB), located in the coastal region of eastern India. The bias-corrected NorESM2-MM general circulation model of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project-6 (CMIP6) was used in this study under four shared socioeconomic pathway (SSPs) scenarios, namely SSP126, SSP245, SSP370 and SSP585. The projected climatic parameters and crop water demands of the basin were analyzed assuming existing cropping pattern in the future. Analysis of the results reveals a significant and rapid increase in the temperature at a rate of 0.02-0.5ºC/year during 2026-2100 under all SSPs except SSP126, whereas the rainfall is expected to increase slightly during 2026-2100 as compared to the baseline period (1990-2016), especially in the far future (2076-2100) under all the SSPs. In contrast, monsoon rainfall is predicted to decrease under SSP245 and SSP370, while a slight increase in the monsoon rainfall is evident under SSP126 and SSP585. Although the rainy days will decrease slightly in the future 25-year time window, the number of heavy rainfall events is predicted to increase by two to three times. Also, retrospective analysis of rainfall and evapotranspiration suggested an existence of rainfall deficit (rainfall-evapotranspiration) in the basin throughout the year, except during July to September. The rainfall deficit in the basin during 2026-2100 is found to remain more or less same in the non-monsoon season, except for the month of October under SSP245, SSP370 and SSP585 scenarios where deficit increases by two folds. Rainfall is expected to be in surplus by 4 to 5 times higher under all SSPs except for SSP245. As to the evapotranspiration, an insignificant increasing trend is observed under future climatic condition with only 2 to 4% rise in the crop water demand compared to the baseline period. As the basin is already water stressed during most months in a year under baseline and future climatic conditions, continuing the current practice of monsoon paddy dominant cultivation in the basin will further aggravate this situation. The results of this study will be helpful in formulating sustainable irrigation plans and adaptation measures to address climate-induced water stress in the basin.</p><p><strong>Keywords:</strong> Climate change; CMIP6; SSP; Monsoon rainfall; Temperature; Crop water demand.</p>

Pareto optimality and compromise for environmental water management

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Null ◽  
Marcelo A. Olivares ◽  
Felipe Cordera ◽  
Jay R. Lund
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Pareto Optimality ◽  
Environmental Water

Conservation of an inauspicious endangered freshwater fish, Murray hardyhead (Craterocephalus fluviatilis), during drought and competing water demands in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia

2013 ◽  
Vol 64 (9) ◽  
pp. 792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain M. Ellis ◽  
Daniel Stoessel ◽  
Michael P. Hammer ◽  
Scotte D. Wedderburn ◽  
Lara Suitor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Freshwater Fish ◽  
Environmental Water ◽  
River Regulation ◽  
Isolated Populations ◽  
Conservation Units ◽  
European Settlement ◽  
Water Demands ◽  
Murray Darling Basin ◽  
Conservation Concern ◽  
Australian Freshwater

Approximately 40% of Australian freshwater fish species are of conservation concern, largely because of the impacts of river regulation, habitat fragmentation and alien fishes. Murray hardyhead is a threatened fish endemic to the southern Murray–Darling Basin in Australia, which has declined significantly in range and abundance since European settlement. Conservation of the species has relied largely on environmental watering of off-channel wetlands where isolated populations persist. This became problematic during recent drought (1997–2010) because of competing demands for limited water, and resentment towards environmental watering programs from communities that themselves were subject to reduced water entitlements. In response, emergency conservation measures prioritised the delivery of environmental water to minimise applied volumes. Captive maintenance programs were established for fish rescued from four genetically distinct conservation units, with varying levels of breeding success. Several translocations of wild and captive-bred fish to surrogate refuge sites were also conducted. Future recovery of the species should secure existing natural and stocked populations and translocate fish to additional appropriate sites to spread risk and reinstate natural pathways for dispersal. The approach to the conservation of Murray hardyhead during extreme environmental conditions provides insights to inform the management of fishes in other drought-prone regions of the world.

scholarly journals From an irrigation system to an ecological asset: adding environmental flows establishes recovery of a threatened fish species

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (9) ◽  
pp. 1295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivor Stuart ◽  
Clayton Sharpe ◽  
Kathryn Stanislawski ◽  
Anna Parker ◽  
Martin Mallen-Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Water Level ◽  
Fish Species ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Environmental Flows ◽  
Irrigation System ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Environmental Water ◽  
Environmental Flow ◽  
Murray Cod ◽  
Riverine Fish

Worldwide, riverine fish are the target of environmental water because populations have declined in lotic river habitats following river regulation. Murray cod is an endangered Australian riverine fish with remaining populations associated with lotic river reaches with instream habitat, including some creeks operated as part of irrigation systems. Our objectives were to develop a life history model, apply the building block method of environmental flows to enhance the abundance of juvenile Murray cod and promote population recovery. From 2008 to 2018 we evaluated changes to Murray cod juvenile abundance before and after implementation of a perennial environmental flow regime that began in 2013. During the first year of the environmental flow, larvae were collected as evidence of spawning. Murray cod abundance can be enhanced with environmental flows that target: (1) an annual spring spawning or recruitment flow with no rapid water level drops; (2) maximising hydrodynamic complexity (i.e. flowing habitats that are longitudinally continuous and hydrodynamically complex); and (3) an annual base winter connection flow. Recognition that incorporating hydraulics (water level and velocity) at fine and coarse time scales, over spatial scales that reflect life histories, provides broader opportunities to expand the scope of environmental flows to help restore imperilled fish species in regulated ecosystems.

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