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Journal Articles

By ConserveOnline Admin on 9/9/2008 | Keyword(s): ELOHA

This article articulated the shortcomings of oversimplifying environmental flow assessment, and issued the challenge to develop a regional approach that incorporates essential aspects of natural flow variability shared across particular classes of rivers that can be validated with empirical biological data:

Arthington, A. H., Bunn, S. E., Poff, N. L. and Naiman, R. J. (2006). "The challenge of providing environmental flow rules to sustain river ecosystems." Ecological Applications16(4): 1311-1318. doi: 10.1890/1051-0761(2006)016[1311:TCOPEF]2.0.CO;2, http://intranet.iucn.org/webfiles/doc/Environmental_Flows/Challenge_of_providing_EFlows.pdf.

A consensus of leading international river scientists accepted the challenge and developed ELOHA. In this article, they provide the rationale and practical guidelines for its application:

Poff, N. L., Richter, B.D., Arthington, A. H., Bunn, S. E., Naiman, R. J., Kendy, E., Acreman, M., Apse, C., Bledsoe, B. P., Freeman, M.C., Henriksen, J., Jacobson, R. B., Kennen, J.G, Merritt, D. M., O'Keefe, J.H., Olden, J.D., Rogers, K., Tharme, R. E. and Warner, A. (in press). "The Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA): A new framework for developing regional environmental flow standards." Freshwater Biology 55:147-170. http://rydberg.biology.colostate.edu/~poff/PoffPublicationsPDF.htm

These journal articles, proceedings and reports describe and discuss actual applications of ELOHA:

Apse, C., M. DePhilip, J. Zimmerman, and M. P. Smith. 2008. Developing instream flow criteria to support ecologically sustainable water resource planning and management. Final report to the Pennsylvania Instream Flow Technical Advisory Committee, 196 p.

Arthington, A. H. (2009). "Applications of the Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA) in Australia". International Conference on Implementing Environmental Water Allocations, 23-26 February, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Kendy, E., Sanderson, J. S., Olden, J. D., Apse, C. D., DePhilip, M. M., Haney, J. A., Knight, R. R. and Zimmerman, J. K. H. (2009). "Applications of the Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA) in the United States". International Conference on Implementing Environmental Water Allocations, 23-26 February, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Sanderson, J. S., Rowan, N., Wilding, T., Bledsoe, B. P., Miller, W. J., and Poff, N. L. 2011. Getting to scale with environmental flow assessment: the watershed flow evaluation tool. River Research and Applications Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/rra.1542.
Wilding, T. K., and N. L. Poff. 2008. "Flow-ecology relationships for the watershed flow evaluation tool." Colorado Water Conservation Board, in Camp Dressser & McKee Inc., Bledsoe B. D., Miller W. J., Poff N. L., Sanderson J. S. & Wilding T. K. (2009) Watershed Flow Evaluation Tool pilot study for Roaring Fork and Fountain Creek watersheds and site-specific quantification pilot study for Roaring Fork watershed (draft). Colorado Water Conservation Board, Denver, CO (Appendix B).

This paper provides useful background:

Poff, N.L., J.D. Allan, M.A. Palmer, D.D. Hart, B.D. Richter, A.H. Arthington, K.H. Rogers, J.L. Meyer, and J.A. Stanford. 2003. River flows and water wars: emerging science for environmental decision making. Frontiers in Ecology 1(6):298-306.
View the paper (.pdf, 567 kb)
(This paper is posted with the permission of the Ecological Society of America.)

For more articles about and related to ELOHA, peruse our bibliography.