Water for the Environment From Policy and Science to Implementation and Management

Water for the Environment: From Policy and Science to Implementation and Management provides a holistic view of environmental water management, offering clear links across disciplines that allow water managers to face mounting challenges.

The book highlights current challenges and potential solutions, helping define the future direction for environmental water management. In addition, it includes a significant review of current literature and state of knowledge, providing a one-stop resource for environmental water managers.

Section I: Introduction 1. Introduction

Section II: History and context of environmental flows 2. Drivers and social context 3. Understanding hydrological alteration 4. Ecological effects of hydrologic alteration 5. Geomorphological change

Section III: Vision and objectives for the river system 6. Impacts of Hydrological Alterations on Water Quality 7. Stakeholder Engagement in Environmental Flows Management 8. Environmental flows and natural capital – free-flowing ecosystem services 9. Environmental water management’s cultural challenge 10. Environmental flow objectives and targets

Section IV: How much water is needed? Tools for environmental water development 11. Evolution of flow principles and methodologies 12. Tools for sediment 13. Physical habitat modelling and ecohydrological tools 14. Ecological response modelling 15. Determining and addressing uncertainty

Section V: Environmental water within Water Resource Planning 16. Water Budgets to Inform Sustainable Resource Management 17. Mechanisms to allocate environmental water 18. Rebalancing the system - Acquiring water and trade 19. Environmental Water Organizations and Institutional Settings 20. Management options informed by hydrological drivers 21. Managing Infrastructure to Maintain Natural Functions in Developed Rivers 22. Environmental water and integrated catchment management

Section VI: Active management of environmental water 23. Planning the use of environmental water 24. Operational issues 25. Monitoring, evaluation and adaptive management of environmental flows 26. Performance Management: A Multi-criteria Policy Toolkit

Section VII: Remaining challenges and way forward 27. Where to from here

Dr. Angus Webb is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Hydrology and Water Resources at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He originally trained as a marine ecologist before moving into the study and restoration of large-scale environmental problems in freshwater systems. Much of his research centers on improving the use of the existing knowledge and data for such problems. To this end he has developed innovative approaches to synthesizing information from the literature, eliciting knowledge from experts, and analyzing large-scale data sets. His teaching at the University of Melbourne is focused on monitoring and evaluation in aquatic systems.

Angus is heavily involved in the monitoring and evaluation of ecological outcomes from environmental water delivered under the Australian government’s Murray-Darling Basin Plan, leading the program for the Goulburn River, Victoria, and advising on data analysis at the basin scale. Angus has authored over 100 publications in the international literature, including 58 journal papers. In addition to this book, he is currently editing two journal special issues on different aspects of environmental water science and management, and is an Associate Editor for the journal Environmental Management. He was awarded the 2013 prize for Building Knowledge in Waterway Management by the River

• Presents a multidisciplinary approach that allows water managers to make connections across related disciplines, such as hydrology, ecology, law, and economics
• Links science to practice for environmental flow researchers and those that implement and manage environmental water on a daily basis
• Includes case studies to demonstrate key points and address implementation issues