2025/03/11 by Dudley W. Reiser, Thomas C Annear, Christopher C. Estes · 1 voice
Engineering · Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Fish Ecology and Management Studies #Hydropower, Displacement, Environmental Impact #Water resources management and optimization
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/fshmag/vuae035
openalex publication_date 2025/03/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/23
Access to water is essential to all life, but it is equally essential for utilitarian purposes such as power generation, agriculture, manufacturing, and construction. Although its global supply was once considered limitless, today’s demands for water have far exceeded its availability in many settings, especially in densely populated geographic regions, which are often located in arid and semiarid zones. In some of these areas, intricate and expensive water conveyance systems have been constructed to deliver water from wetter regions, which correspondingly has led to diminishment of their supply. With these increased demands comes an increased risk to degrade freshwater ecosystems worldwide, fostering intense competition between needs that are strictly anthropogenically focused and utilitarian-based versus those that meet basic needs of freshwater ecosystems. Defining defensible flow and water level regimes that promote healthy ecosystems (rivers, lakes, wetlands, estuaries) is vital for their conservation (protection, restoration, and enhancement) and management. Supporting this is the need for research, development, and training in the interdisciplinary science-based methods to derive these flows/water levels, coupled with effective laws, policies, and public involvement. In this article, we posit that the most effective means of achieving this (i.e., defensible flow and water level regimes) is through the establishment of a National Center for Ecologically Sustainable Water Conservation and Management (Center) that mirrors in some respects the former Cooperative Instream Flow Service Group (CIFSG) that functioned from 1976 to 2001. Our rationale and a selected pathway leading to the development of the Center is described. Prior to the 1970s, water supply management primarily focused on meeting domestic, agricultural, industrial, and power generation demands. Although the scientific community was aware of ecological impacts associated with hydrologic alterations as early as the 1800s, there were limited or no legal and general public considerations given to the negative effects on the ecological functions that are necessary to support these systems (Locke et al., 2008; Marsh, 1864/2021). The legal means for protecting these systems was likewise limited or nonexistent. Indeed, at least in the western states, water use was often defined by its “Duty,” which according to The Water Rights Handbook for Colorado Conservation Professionals (Nichols et al., 2005) is “the amount of water that through careful management and use, without wastage, is reasonably required to be applied to a tract of land for a length of time that is adequate to produce the maximum amount of crops that are ordinarily grown there.” In essence, preserving water within a river, lake, reservoir, or connected water was considered wasteful. The persistence of this view remains problematic and is counter to the contemporaneous Brisbane Declaration (2007 , p. 1; conservationgateway.org), which states, “Environmental Flows are essential for freshwater ecosystem health and human well-being” and also: Healthy freshwater ecosystems—rivers, lakes, floodplains, wetlands, and estuaries—provide clean water, food, fiber, energy and many other benefits that support economies and livelihoods around the world. They are essential to human health and well-being. Fortunately, the public, and not just the scientific community, now have a better understanding of the inherent ecological needs and associated benefits for retaining portions of water within rivers, lakes, estuaries, wetlands, and groundwater systems and the importance of balancing these needs with human-related uses. And we have the legal mechanisms to marry both. Although we have established various legal and regulatory mechanisms to achieve such, many of these were enacted in locations where most water sources had already been significantly or fully allocated. Thus, the ability to successfully execute this balance is complex and further challenged by the global population growth compounded by the recent anthropogenic-induced climate shifts and associated changes (FAO, 2018) that affect hydrologic cycles and associated water quality parameters and their linked surface and groundwater ecosystems and estuaries (Figure 1). Socioeconomic and cultural considerations also factor into all elements related to water allocation issues. Conceptual watershed illustrating linked surface and groundwater ecosystems and estuaries that displays hydrologic flow paths, interrelationships, and connections between surface (rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands) and groundwater flows as influenced by geomorphic processes within a watershed. Figure adapted from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS; https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/natural-water-cycle-jpg; see also https://labs.waterdata.usgs.gov/visualizations/water-cycle/index.html#/). Although water resource engineers and specialists can readily quantify seasonal and long-term water needs for specific uses such as hydropower, agriculture, and domestic water supply, determining the water needs to sustain riverine, lacustrine, and estuarine systems has proven more difficult. Adding to this difficulty is the lack of formalized interdisciplinary training for selecting and applying regionally based methods that incorporate the eight main elements defined by the Instream Flow Council ([IFC]; Annear et al., 2004). These eight elements include five science elements (hydrology, geomorphology, biology, connectivity, and water quality components) in combination with legal, institutional, and public involvement (including socioeconomic) considerations (Figure 2). Effective aquatic resource conservation and management is achieved by the integration of eight interdisciplinary elements that include three social elements—legal, public involvement and institutional capacity, and five science elements (hydrology, geomorphology, biology, connectivity, and water quality). This was not always the case. From 1976 through 2001, the CIFSG in Fort Collins, Colorado (described briefly below), played a vital role in developing and promoting the discipline of instream flow conservation (protection, restoration, and enhancement), with an emphasis on lotic habitats. In subsequent years, there has been a growing need to expand the focus to account for hydrologic and biologic connectivity within watersheds and consider not only rivers and streams but also include lakes, reservoirs, wetlands, estuaries, groundwater, and other nonflowing waterbodies as well as associated terrestrial and riparian habitats. Since 2001, a variety of other sources of independent training has been offered on a periodic basis through various entities and organizations that encompass a portion of the elements described above. Unlike the CIFSG, these other sources of training are designed for targeted audiences and typically do not apply an interdisciplinary approach integrating all of the eight IFC elements. This has created a void in the comprehensive application of existing methods and insufficient development of state-of-the-art methods required to achieve effective instream flow and water level conservation. Recognizing this void, the IFC and American Fisheries Society (AFS) collaborated in 2019 and obtained a Multistate Conservation Grant. These partners established a 10-person steering committee (Committee) of experts from a range of disciplines to evaluate the need and feasibility of establishing a national training and development center (Table S1). In this article, we (as members of the Committee) briefly review the past and current offerings of Instream Flow and Water Level Conservation (IFWLC) training and then describe a path forward toward the establishment of the Center. 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