Linking Water Quality and Quantity in Environmental Flow Assessment in Deteriorated Ecosystems: A Food Web View |
| |
| Authors: | He Chen Lekuan Ma Wei Guo Ying Yang Tong Guo Cheng Feng |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.; 2. Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning, Beijing, China.; 3. Research Center for Ecological Engineering and Nonlinear Science, North China Electric Power University, Beijing , China.; 4. Biodiversity and Ecological Modelling and DCPS, Institute of Biology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.; University of Sydney, Australia, |
| |
| Abstract: | Most rivers worldwide are highly regulated by anthropogenic activities through flow regulation and water pollution. Environmental flow regulation is used to reduce the effects of anthropogenic activities on aquatic ecosystems. Formulating flow alteration–ecological response relationships is a key factor in environmental flow assessment. Traditional environmental flow models are characterized by natural relationships between flow regimes and ecosystem factors. However, food webs are often altered from natural states, which disturb environmental flow assessment in such ecosystems. In ecosystems deteriorated by heavy anthropogenic activities, the effects of environmental flow regulation on species are difficult to assess with current modeling approaches. Environmental flow management compels the development of tools that link flow regimes and food webs in an ecosystem. Food web approaches are more suitable for the task because they are more adaptive for disordered multiple species in a food web deteriorated by anthropogenic activities. This paper presents a global method of environmental flow assessment in deteriorated aquatic ecosystems. Linkages between flow regimes and food web dynamics are modeled by incorporating multiple species into an ecosystem to explore ecosystem-based environmental flow management. The approach allows scientists and water resources managers to analyze environmental flows in deteriorated ecosystems in an ecosystem-based way. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
