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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Anna MurgatroydORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Concern about the impacts of water regulation upon the aquatic environment has led to increasingly stringent regulatory constraints on the quantity and timing of freshwater withdrawals. For the time being these regulatory constraints tend to be articulated in terms of limits upon withdrawals, partly because of limited knowledge of the condition and resilience of the aquatic ecosystems. A more sophisticated approach to regulation would be more directly related to indicators of ecological condition. Moreover, it would consider ecosystem response to climatic events not present in the historical record. In this paper we use a combination of empirical evidence of ecosystem condition with simulation to propose and test reductions to regulatory limits on river water withdrawals and downstream minimum flow requirements. The study uses multi-level linear regression to relate the Lotic-invertebrate Index for Flow Evaluation (LIFE) to antecedent flow statistics observed in the Lee catchment, England. The selected flow statistics included extreme low (Q90) and high (Q10) flows in the summer season (April-Sept), and the median flows observed in the winter season (Oct-Mar). The derived model is used to forecast the response of the macroinvertebrate index to future flow scenarios and demand forecasts, incorporating the uncertainties in ecosystem response. Simulation is used to evaluate the sensitivity of the indices to different regulatory limits. Results indicate that macroinvertebrate health will worsen under 21st Century climate conditions, and that the existing regulation policy must be modified to maintain historically observed LIFE scores into the future. The framework demonstrates how regulations could move from precautionary limits on withdrawals to an approach based on observations, forecasting and simulation, allowing planners to refine the trade-offs between river health and reliable water supply in the face of uncertainty.
Author(s): Murgatroyd A, Hall JW
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Climate Risk Management
Year: 2021
Volume: 32
Online publication date: 23/03/2021
Acceptance date: 17/03/2021
Date deposited: 09/08/2024
ISSN (electronic): 2212-0963
Publisher: Elsevier
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2021.100303
DOI: 10.1016/j.crm.2021.100303
Data Access Statement: The Weather@Home sequences can be downloaded from the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis repository (https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/4eb66be638e04d759939a7af571f18ad). CEH Gridded rainfall estimates can be found in the CEH data repository (https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/documents/ee9ab43d-a4fe-4e73-afd5-cd4fc4c82556). The DECIPHeR model code is available at https://github.com/uob-hydrology/DECIPHeR and corresponding flow series are available https://doi.org/10.5523/bris.2pkv9oxgfzvts235zrui7xz00g. Monthly water demand profile has been published by Dobson & Mijic (2020) and accessed via https://zenodo.org/record/3764678#.Xs0JNmhKhPY. Demand projections at company level have been published by the Environment Agency (2019), accessed at https://data.gov.uk/dataset/fb38a40c-ebc1-4e6e-912c-bb47a76f6149/revised-draft-water-resources-management-plan-2019-supply-demand-data-at-company-level-2020-21-to-2044-45#licence-info. [continues at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212
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