Journal
HYDROLOGICAL SCIENCES JOURNAL-JOURNAL DES SCIENCES HYDROLOGIQUES
Volume 59, Issue 3-4, Pages 451-465Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/02626667.2013.816426
Keywords
estuary health; freshwater inflow; freshwater requirements; ecological reserve
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Environmental flow requirements of estuaries have been ignored in the past, mostly because of the lack of long-term monitoring data or understanding of the responses to changes in freshwater inflow. In some cases, it was incorrectly assumed that the minimum flows determined for rivers would protect downstream processes and in others the omission of environmental water requirement studies for estuaries was as a result of the sectoral management of water resources or lack of applicable legislation. Three main countries have developed methods for estuaries, i.e. Australia, South Africa and the USA, from practical applications and a learning-by-doing approach. Recent methods take a holistic and adaptive standpoint and are presented as frameworks that include a number of steps and have elements of risk assessment and adaptive management. Most approaches are data rich and emphasize long-term monitoring. This review showed that, although methods are available, implementation is slow and will require strong governance structures, stakeholder participation, monitoring and feedback in an adaptive management cycle.
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