Abstract
In order to fulfill national and international commitments and environmental objectives flows in many managed rivers and streams will likely need to be re-evaluated to meet ecosystem needs. Most flow alteration in Swedish rivers and streams is related to hydropower production. Present environmental law dictates that measures should be implemented to safeguard riverine ecosystems. However, there is no standardized model for environmental water allocation, nor is there any direct scientific linkage between prescribed flows and the ecosystem. Flows are kept more or less constant, lacking many of the hydrological variables that work as drivers for the ecosystem and often extreme low flow levels are used. Scientific knowledge about the importance of natural flow regimes for sustaining riverine ecosystems suggests that the static and arbitrary minimum flows used in regulated Swedish rivers are inefficient in sustaining diversity and ecological processes. Future relicensing of water rights provides a possibility to improve environmental water allocation. The aim of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of flow management in Swedish rivers and streams and to develop methods that match ecosystem needs by developing flow-ecology response curves for variables representing structure and function of riparian ecosystems. I will do this by comparing reaches without prescribed minimum flows, reaches with prescribed minimum flows and reference reaches with no flow alterations.
Sweden