Globally widespread and increasing violations of environmental flow envelopes

Human actions and climate change have drastically altered river flows across the world, resulting in adverse effects on riverine ecosystems. Environmental flows (EFs) have emerged as a prominent tool for safeguarding the riverine ecosystems, but at the global scale, the assessment of EFs is associat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Hydrology and earth system sciences 2022-07, Vol.26 (12), p.3315-3336
Main Authors: Virkki, Vili, Alanärä, Elina, Porkka, Miina, Ahopelto, Lauri, Gleeson, Tom, Mohan, Chinchu, Wang-Erlandsson, Lan, Flörke, Martina, Gerten, Dieter, Gosling, Simon N, Hanasaki, Naota, Müller Schmied, Hannes, Wanders, Niko, Kummu, Matti
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Allocations
Anthropogenic factors
Aquatic ecosystems
Basins
Biodiversity
Climate change
Climatic changes
Discharge
Ecosystems
Envelopes
Environmental aspects
Environmental law
General circulation models
Hydrologic data
Hydrologic models
Hydrology
Low flow
Lower bounds
Management
Methods
River flow
Rivers
Seasons
Stream discharge
Stream flow
Streamflow
Trends
Uncertainty
Upper bounds
Violations
Water
Water management
Water policy
Water resources
Water resources management
Water use
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Summary:Human actions and climate change have drastically altered river flows across the world, resulting in adverse effects on riverine ecosystems. Environmental flows (EFs) have emerged as a prominent tool for safeguarding the riverine ecosystems, but at the global scale, the assessment of EFs is associated with high uncertainty related to the hydrological data and EF methods employed. Here, we present a novel, in-depth global EF assessment using environmental flow envelopes (EFEs). Sub-basin-specific EFEs are determined for approximately 4400 sub-basins at a monthly time resolution, and their derivation considers the methodological uncertainties related to global-scale EF studies. In addition to a lower bound of discharge based on existing EF methods, we introduce an upper bound of discharge in the EFE. This upper bound enables areas to be identified where streamflow has substantially increased above natural levels. Further, instead of only showing whether EFs are violated over a time period, we quantify, for the first time, the frequency, severity, and trends of EFE violations during the recent historical period.
ISSN:1607-7938
1027-5606
1607-7938
DOI:10.5194/hess-26-3315-2022