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A New Approach to Incorporating Environmental Flow Requirements in Water Allocation Modeling

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Abstract

The condition of river, wetland and estuarine ecosystems is largely determined by the prevailing flow regime. The flow regime can be described by the magnitude, frequency, timing, duration and rate of change of both intra-annual and inter-annual events. The required flow regime, necessary to maintain the ecosystem in a particular condition, is referred to as the environmental flow requirement. To appropriately take environmental flow requirements into consideration in water resources planning and management, it is required that models used in water resources planning can accommodate the specific characteristics of the environmental flow requirements. This paper presents a new functionality in the generic water resources planning package ‘RIBASIM’, which allows for realistic allocation of particularly the high flow pulses and small and large floods that are part of an environmental flow requirement. Tests of this functionality with a model application based on the characteristics of the Mahabad basin in Iran show that the use of this functionality can help to find environmental flow release options that lead to smaller losses for other water users, which would not have been found easily if the traditional approach was used.

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Acknowledgements

This paper makes use of data collected and a model developed as part of a project named “Integrated Water Resources Management in Lake Orumiyeh” financed by the Partners for Water program and the West Azerbaijan Regional Water Authority. We would like to thank the Iranian Water Research Institute for their cooperation. We would also like to express thanks to three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments which helped improve the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Scenarios and Policy Analysis Unit, Deltares, PO Box 177, 2600 MH, Delft, The Netherlands

    K. S. Meijer, W. N. M. van der Krogt & E. van Beek

  2. Water Engineering & Management Group, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE, Enschede, The Netherlands

    E. van Beek

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  1. K. S. Meijer
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  2. W. N. M. van der Krogt
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  3. E. van Beek
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Correspondence to K. S. Meijer.

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Meijer, K.S., van der Krogt, W.N.M. & van Beek, E. A New Approach to Incorporating Environmental Flow Requirements in Water Allocation Modeling. Water Resour Manage 26, 1271–1286 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-011-9958-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-011-9958-z

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