Construction of habitat suitability models (HSMs) for benthic macroinvertebrate and their applications to instream environmental flows: A case study in Xiangxi River of Three Gorges Reservior region, China

Li, Fengqing; Cai, Qinghua; Fu, Xinchu; Liu, Jiankang

doi:10.1016/j.pnsc.2008.07.011

Cited by 68 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Subsequently, they used the simulated water temperature as an input variable to assess the habitat suitability of fish. On the other hand, flow has also been used to predict the habitat suitability of fish [114] or macroinvertebrates [115]. In addition, biotic variables such as the biomass of invertebrates was used as an input variable in food web models to predict the changes in vertebrate communities [55].…”

Section: Model Processes and Outputsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, most model approaches base their assessment on physical-chemical water quality or the habitat suitability of adult fish (e.g., Ruetz and Jennings [32]; Freeman et al [31]; Cerny et al [62]; Grand et al [55]; Hatten et al [22]; Garcia et al [18]; Li et al [99]; Cioffi and Gallerano [112]; Chen et al [131]; Wang et al [25]), including often purely the most common and economic valuable species (e.g., trout, salmon) or endangered species. One publication considered the impact of flow regulation on algae [38]; one paper focused on the effect on habitat suitability of amphibians [26]; and just three papers considered macroinvertebrates [25,37,115] in their assessment.…”

Section: Weaknessesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, models' outcomes can be overor under-predicted. Li et al [115] pointed out that the physiology of organisms varies over different life stages, and caution is needed when applying year-round data. Therefore, using one model for different life stages and for the whole-year conditions may lead to incorrect prediction results.…”

Section: Threatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The habitat suitability criteria used might be suitable for a specific case, but they may not be useful for other locations; therefore, validation of the habitat suitability model on independent data originating from different geographic locations is required [26]. For instance, models developed to assess the impact of small hydropower dams in mountainous streams might not be applicable to assess the impact on large lowland rivers [115]. As a result, the choices of input variables and derived ecological indicators need critical review and validation by local experts before being reliable for model development.…”

Section: Threatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modelling Tools to Analyze and Assess the Ecological Impact of Hydropower Dams

Nguyen

Everaert

Boets

et al. 2018

Water

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Abstract:We critically analyzed a set of ecological models that are used to assess the impact of hydropower dams on water quality and habitat suitability for biological communities. After a literature search, we developed an integrated conceptual model that illustrates the linkages between the main input variables, model approaches, the output variables and biotic-abiotic interactions in the ecosystems related to hydropower dams. We found that variations in water flow and water depth coupled with increased nutrient availability are major variables that contribute to structural and functional ecosystem changes. We also found that ecological models are an important tool to assess the impact of hydropower dams. For instance, model simulation of different scenarios (e.g., with and without the dam, different operation methods) can analyze and predict the related ecosystem shifts. However, one of the remaining shortcomings of these models is the limited capacity to separate dam-related impacts from other anthropogenic influences (e.g., agriculture, urbanization). Moreover, collecting sufficient high-quality data to increase the statistical power remains a challenge. The severely altered conditions (e.g., generation of very deep lakes) also lead to difficulties for standardized data collection. We see future opportunities in the integration of models to improve the understanding of the different processes affected by hydropower dam development and operation, as well as the use of remote sensing methods for data collection.

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Section: Model Processes and Outputsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Weaknessesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Threatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Threatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modelling Tools to Analyze and Assess the Ecological Impact of Hydropower Dams

Nguyen

Everaert

Boets

et al. 2018

Water

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“…In China, uninterrupted ecosystem monitoring of the Xiangxi River system provides available data from which to begin to quantify such effects. There exist many published studies in this area, focused on environmental variables and macroinvertebrates (Qu et al 2005, Jiang et al 2008, Li et al 2009a.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Macroinvertebrate relationships with water temperature and water flow in subtropical monsoon streams of Central China: implications for climate change

Li¹,

Cai²,

Jiang³

et al. 2012

fal

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Abstract:Effects of global climate change on freshwaters are still poorly known, particularly in systems where they interact with other environmental variables. Using data from a subtropical monsoon stream in Central China, we assessed the relationships between a macroinvertebrate community and variations in temperature and water flow. We then used these data to assess potential changes under different climate change scenarios. Winter macroinvertebrate abundance and richness decreased with increasing water temperature during the last six years. However, effects of climate on biotic metrics in summer were less clear. Partially constrained ordination revealed that variations in community composition could not be explained clearly by individual climatic variables, but total dissolved solids and total nitrogen were more important. Over the period 1978 -2008, average annual air temperature in the study area increased by 0.6 °C, whereas total annual water flow declined. Projections suggest that further winter warming of 1 °C could decrease the macroinvertebrate abundance and richness by 11.1 % and 6.0 %, respectively. One unit increase in the smoothed sea surface temperature (SSST) during winter could increase the abundance and richness by 38.2 % and 21.1 %, respectively. With further global change effects likely in future, our data highlight the importance of the conservation of mountainous streams in the upper Yangtze River.

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Comparing environmental flow scenarios from hydrological methods, legislation guidelines, and hydrodynamic habitat models downstream of the Marathon Dam (Attica, Greece)

et al. 2018

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In their effort to balance anthropogenic water demand and ecosystem conservation within a sustainable water resources management framework, water managers and stakeholders need sound scientific guidance. In this study, we applied a two-dimensional hydrodynamic habitat model using benthic macroinvertebrates as the target aquatic community and carried out an environmental flow (eflow) assessment downstream of the Marathon Reservoir (Attica, Central Greece). Hydrology-based eflow scenarios were additionally developed over an 11-year period, and the lowest acceptable ecosystem-based eflow was compared with the hydrology-based eflow predictions. We found that the hydrological methods tend to underestimate the eflows required to ensure functional aquatic ecosystems. The results showed that (a) the different hydrological methods developed highly variable eflow scenarios, ranging from 0.0006 to 0.18 m 3 /s, (b) the ecosystem-based eflow was up to 183% higher than the hydrology-based ones and 26% to 465% higher than those defined by the national legislation, and (c) the probability of agreement between hydrological and ecological predictions was 12.5%, as only one out of the eight hydrology-based scenarios coincided with the ecosystem-based eflows. We conclude that hydrological methods should be used with caution in the absence of ecological information. Their use as stand-alone tools seems problematic and bears a high risk of producing inappropriate eflow scenarios. Integrative frameworks combining hydrological-ecological methods could be useful to provide information on what is ecologically acceptable and hydrologically socially feasible, but because the two methods comprise structurally different, noninteracting concepts, they are inherently insufficient to increase the confidence of predicting and selecting eflows.

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Construction of habitat suitability models (HSMs) for benthic macroinvertebrate and their applications to instream environmental flows: A case study in Xiangxi River of Three Gorges Reservior region, China

Cited by 68 publications

References 29 publications

Modelling Tools to Analyze and Assess the Ecological Impact of Hydropower Dams

Modelling Tools to Analyze and Assess the Ecological Impact of Hydropower Dams

Macroinvertebrate relationships with water temperature and water flow in subtropical monsoon streams of Central China: implications for climate change

Comparing environmental flow scenarios from hydrological methods, legislation guidelines, and hydrodynamic habitat models downstream of the Marathon Dam (Attica, Greece)

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