Assessment of the Ecological Potential of Heavily Modified Water Bodies in the Basilicata Region, Italy: Case Study of the Agri River Basin

Abstract

River morphology and ecosystem are macro-indicators of climate and land-use changes as well as human activities and land policies. In the last decades, knowledge of water resources, in terms of quality, quantity, prevention and control, has quickly increased-even for the availability of advanced methodologies and technologies both for monitoring and modelling fields. Nevertheless, the objective of a good ecological status of water bodies has not yet been reached due to human pressure which still induces long term impacts as well as direct or indirect physical constraints. In such a context, the European Water Framework Directive introduces the concepts of artificial water bodies (AWB) and heavily modified water bodies (HMWB) and states that in such cases good ecological potential must be reached while good ecological status is required only for natural water bodies (NWB). Further, the methodologies proposed for the AWB and HMWB need a wide set of parameters and measurements, which are not always systematically available, inducing further actions and analyses in order to evaluate the quality level of the water bodies. Moreover, the AWB or HMWB classification represents an opportunity to resize the measures addressed to achieve good ecological status both in terms of economic engagement and timing with relevant consequences on water resource planning and management. The paper deals with these issues and synthetically reports the work done on the whole Lucanian river network (Basilicata region, Southern Italy) and also presents the Agri River case study in order to classify, as best as possible, AWB, HMWB and NWB as well as to support survey planning.

Definition of Ecological Flow Using IHA and IARI as an Operative Procedure for Water Management

“…Thus, Eflow might be assumed as being the rate of natural discharge that should be left in a water body to maintain a high quality of water resources and water-related ecosystems, according to the requirements of environmental protection [9]. Furthermore, the concept of Eflow evolved from the simple idea of determining the minimum water discharge needed for the existence of ecological species [10] to the complex view dealing with the possible implications on river ecosystem management in anthropogenic-stressed basins [11][12][13].…”

Definition of the Ecological Flow (Eflow) Using the Indicators of Hydrological Alteration and IARI as an Operative Tool for Water Management

“…Thus, the Eflow might be assumed as the rate of natural discharge that should be left in the water body to maintain high value of water resources and water-related ecosystems, according to the requirements of environmental protection [9]. Furthermore, the concept of Eflow evolved from the simple idea to determine the minimum water discharge needed for the existence of ecological species [10] to the complex view dealing with the possible implications on river ecosystem management in anthropogenic-stressed basins [11][12][13]. In other words, Eflow should represent the imposed conditions on river hydrology able to provide appropriate ecological functions under flow regulation restrictions induced by natural and/or anthropogenetic stresses [14].…”