Abstract
Implementing environmental flows has emerged as a major river management tool for addressing the impacts of hydrologic alteration in large river systems. The “natural flow paradigm” has been a central guiding principle for determining important ecohydrological relationships. Yet, climate change and associated changes in rainfall run off relationships, seasonality of flows, disruptions to food webs and species life cycle cues mean these existing relationships will, in many circumstances, become obsolete. Revised thinking around setting ecological objectives is required to ensure environmental management targets are achievable, particularly in regions where water scarcity is predicted to increase. Through this lens “climate ready” targets are those that are robust to changing water availability or incorporate future adaptation options. Future objective setting should be based around the inclusion of changing climate and water availability, and the associated species and ecosystem vulnerabilities, and expected outcomes under different policy and adaptation options. This paper uses south eastern Australia as a case study region to review the extent to which current water management plans include climate considerations and adaptation in objective setting. Results show untested climate adaptation inclusions, and a general lack of acknowledgement of changing hydrological and ecological conditions in existing management plans. In response this paper presents a process for setting objectives so they can be considered “climate ready.”
Highlights
Increasing global populations and the demand for freshwater is resulting in water scarcity across many parts of the globe (Vörösmarty et al, 2000; Bond et al, 2019)
This is an important recognition by water managers there is no specific mention in existing objectives that connects this change of focus to consideration of future climate or water availability, or if it is due to other considerations
It has been widely documented that the Basin Plan does not adequately address climate change (Young et al, 2011; Pittock et al, 2015; Alexandra 2017) and this is evidenced by the objectives assessed here
Summary
Increasing global populations and the demand for freshwater is resulting in water scarcity across many parts of the globe (Vörösmarty et al, 2000; Bond et al, 2019). Regulation of rivers for human water use has left many rivers with altered hydrology and degraded ecology (Bunn 2016), which will be further impacted by climate change (Smakhtin et al, 2004; Palmer et al, 2008; Vörösmarty et al, 2010). Approaches to determining flow requirements for ecosystems are numerous, and reviews have outlined more than 200 recognised methods (Poff et al, 1997; Tharme 2003; Arthington et al, 2006; Nel et al, 2011). The challenges of assessing environmental flow requirements under a changing climate have been highlighted (Arthington et al, 2018). While there has been some discussion around the need for additional hydrological
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