The Ecologically Sustainable Water Management Framework
We offer here a framework for developing an
ecologically sustainable water management program, in which human needs for water are met by storing and diverting water in a manner that can sustain or restore the ecological integrity of affected river ecosystems.
This framework is depicted as a six-step process:
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Define environmental flow requirements:
develop initial numerical estimates of key aspects of river flow necessary to sustain native species and natural ecosystem functions;
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Determine the influence of human activities:
accounting for human uses of water, both current and future, through development of a computerized hydrologic simulation model that facilitates examination of human-induced alterations to river flow regimes;
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Identify areas of incompatibility:
assessing incompatibilities between human and ecosystem needs with particular attention to their spatial and temporal character;
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Search for collaborative solution:
collaboratively searching for solutions to resolve incompatibilities;
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Conduct water management experiments:
design and implement water management experiments to resolve critical uncertainties that frustrate efforts to integrate human and ecosystem needs; and
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Design and implement an adaptive management plan:
using the knowledge gained in steps 1-5, create an adaptive management program to facilitate ecologically sustainable water management for the long term.
The ESWM framework is discussed in detail in a paper published in Ecological Applications:
Ecologically Sustainable Water Management: Managing River Flows for Ecological Integrity (.pdf file, 530kb)
(authored by Brian Richter, Ruth Mathews, Robert Wigington and David Harrison).
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