Author(s): Ang Chen; Sainan Wu; Chunna Liu; Xin Sui
Linked Author(s):
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: Environmental flow is now an important restoration technique under degraded ecological conditions, and with the increasing public desire and pursuit of beautiful life and beautiful China, environmental flow has become widely used in China to reflect the hydrological regime required to sustain freshwater and estuarine ecosystems that depend on them. Over the past 40 years in China, environmental flow implementations have shifted from static minimum flow to dynamic ecological flow. However, ecological flow standards used to manage ecological flow release of dam projects are to a great extent based on expert judgement and government supervision. These negative attributes make it difficult to implement ecological flow standards in the non-stationary world. We reviewed the history, management system and scientific bases of environmental flows, and classified the development processes into four periods. The legal system, including the laws, regulations, policies and responsible institutions, which underpin environmental flow implementation in each period, was provided. Finally, the scientific based methods which sustain environmental flow determination and assessment were analyzed using implementation practices. We discovered the following: (1) Ecological flow is the current official definition, which evolved from minimum flow, and is still expanding; (2) There are too many ministries and legal documents for managing ecological flow which lead to inefficient implementation; and (3) The scientific bases are enriched from broad-scale hydrological regime analysis and ecological impacts, while the practices are more holistic. In order to achieve the goal of beautiful China, ecological flow implementation must engage with sustainable water management by setting clear responsibilities of governments, ministries, and other stakeholders.
Year: 2018