1. Small, off-channel dams are generally ignored in impact assessments owing to limited information and spatial resolution issues. Previous research on South African rivers showed correlative links between high density of small dams and associated reductions in low flows, poorer water quality, and impoverished aquatic macroinvertebrate communities that were dominated by opportunistic taxa instead of specialist groups.2. Since small dams are usually associated with catchment transformation (for example, vineyards, stock farming and exotic timber plantations), they are convenient surrogates of the impacts of catchment transformation on river functionality. Here, an index of cumulative small dams for South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland is presented and evaluated.3. Fifty-two per cent of the water management catchments in the study region exceeded the threshold for the cumulative small dams density (SDD) index above which river functionality is compromised. This estimate of potentially affected catchments is considered to be conservative for reasons discussed. 4. The index results are compared with a recent systematic biodiversity planning exercise for setting biodiversity targets for freshwater areas of South Africa. Although the systematic planning included in-stream small dams within 50 m of a river, analysis showed that 36% of all quaternaries that have high SDD score overlap with river reaches classified as 'natural' or 'largely natural'. 5. Disregarding dams outside the 50 m buffer area equates to ignoring the majority of small dams (94%) in South Africa, and it is recommended that aquatic conservation assessments include the SDD index as a cost layer for prioritizing rivers for rehabilitation and conservation.

Rivers are now facing increasing pressure and demand to provide water directly for drinking, farming and supporting industries as a result of rapidly growing global human population. Globally, the most common practice for catchment managers is to limit water abstraction and changes to stream flow by setting environmental flow standards that guard and maintain the natural ecosystem characteristics. Since the development of the environmental flow concept and methods in South Africa, very few studies have assessed the institutional constraints towards environmental flow implementation. This study determined stream flow trends over time by fitting simple linear regression model to mean daily stream flow data at three selected stations in the Luvuvhu River Catchment (LRC). We also conducted a literature search to review, firstly the response of aquatic organisms (fish and macroinvertebrate) to changes in habitat conditions and secondly on local challenges affecting the sustainable implementation of environmental flow regime and related water resources management strategies. All the three stream flow stations show decreasing stream flow volume of 1 and 2 orders of magnitude faster in some stations with the possibility that flow will cease in the near future. Qualitative analyses from both local and international literature search found that the main challenges facing the implementation of sustainable flow strategies and management are absence of catchment management agency, lack of understanding of environmental flow benefits, limited financial budget, lack of capacity and conflict of interest. Rivers with changing stream flows tend to lose sensitive species. The development of scientifically credible catchment-wide environmental flow and abstraction thresholds for rivers within the LRC would make a major contribution in minimizing the declining stream flow volumes. Monitoring and reporting should be prioritized to give regular accounts of the state of our rivers.

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Freshwater organisms are threatened by changes in stream flow and water temperature regimes due to global climate change and anthropogenic activities. Threats include the disappearance of narrow‐tolerance species and loss of favorable thermal conditions for cold‐adapted organisms. Mayflies are an abundant and diverse indicator of river health that performs important functional roles. The relative importance of key hydro‐environmental factors such as water temperature and flow volumes in structuring these communities has rarely been explored in the tropical regions of Africa. Here, we investigate the response of mayfly species diversity to these factors in the Luvuvhu catchment, a strategic water source area in the arid northeastern region of South Africa. Mayfly larvae were sampled monthly in stones‐in‐current biotopes across 23 sites over a one‐year period. The relationship between these environmental drivers and mayfly diversity was modeled using linear mixed effects models (LMMs) and a model‐based multivariate approach. Threshold Indicator Taxa Analysis (TITAN) was used to model the response of mayfly species to important gradients and identify thresholds of change. Site‐specific characteristic were the most important predictor of mayfly diversity, and there was considerable variation over time, with mayfly diversity peaking during winter. Along this, gradient temperature was the best predictor of assemblage structure, with five out of six reliable indicator species being cold‐adapted, and a community threshold response at 19°C. Results support laboratory‐based thresholds of temperature for mayfly species survival and development, extending empirical evidence to include field‐based observations. Increased global (climate change) and local (riparian vegetation removal, impoundments) changes are predicted to have negative impacts on mayfly diversity and ultimately on ecosystem function.

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