Abstract
Rivers are now facing increasing pressure and demand to provide water directly for drinking, farming and supporting industries as a result of rapidly growing global human population. Globally, the most common practice for catchment managers is to limit water abstraction and changes to stream flow by setting environmental flow standards that guard and maintain the natural ecosystem characteristics. Since the development of the environmental flow concept and methods in South Africa, very few studies have assessed the institutional constraints towards environmental flow implementation. This study determined stream flow trends over time by fitting simple linear regression model to mean daily stream flow data at three selected stations in the Luvuvhu River Catchment (LRC). We also conducted a literature search to review, firstly the response of aquatic organisms (fish and macroinvertebrate) to changes in habitat conditions and secondly on local challenges affecting the sustainable implementation of environmental flow regime and related water resources management strategies. All the three stream flow stations show decreasing stream flow volume of 1 and 2 orders of magnitude faster in some stations with the possibility that flow will cease in the near future. Qualitative analyses from both local and international literature search found that the main challenges facing the implementation of sustainable flow strategies and management are absence of catchment management agency, lack of understanding of environmental flow benefits, limited financial budget, lack of capacity and conflict of interest. Rivers with changing stream flows tend to lose sensitive species. The development of scientifically credible catchment-wide environmental flow and abstraction thresholds for rivers within the LRC would make a major contribution in minimizing the declining stream flow volumes. Monitoring and reporting should be prioritized to give regular accounts of the state of our rivers.
Highlights
River scientists are challenged by the question of how much water a river needs to maintain its natural health and to sustain the integrity of aquatic and riparian ecosystems
This study found that natural flow volumes are currently declining significantly across the Luvuvhu River Catchment (LRC), with the trend suggesting that flow is likely to cease in the foreseeable future
Stakeholders will benefit from the biodiversity and essential ecological goods and services provided by the LRC ecosystem, while maximizing economic and social welfare in an equitable manner
Summary
The aims of this study were to (1) determine the stream flow regime trend and anticipated impacts on aquatic organisms in the Luvuvhu River catchment, Limpopo province, South Africa; and (2) review local challenges affecting the sustainable management of river flows, especially in relation to the institutional capacity of the river management framework to provide environmental flows
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