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Assessment of Ecological Risk Based on Projected Hydrological Alteration

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Abstract

It is widely accepted that changes in river flows related to Climate Changes (CCs) may result in several impacts on ecosystems. The main goal of this paper is to assess the ecological risk associated with projected/future flow alteration in the Portuguese Guadiana River Basin. Thus, five climate change scenarios were defined based on bias corrected and spatially downscaled climate projections. These projections were used to run a hydrological model (Temez) for the assessment of potential hydrological impacts. Ecologically relevant hydrological indicators were calculated for the baseline hydrological conditions and for each of five hydrological future scenarios (for selected future periods). By way of the evaluation of the potential hydrological changes (based on the comparison between baseline and future metrics), it was possible to assess the likely ecological risk due to flow alteration. This evaluation was performed based on the ecological risk due to flow alteration (ERFA) screening method. This methodology was developed based on the Range of Variability Approach (RVA), a technique used to define ecological limits of hydrologic alteration. The ERFA methodology enables the aggregation of information as colour-coded risk classifications, which allows for the assessment of the locations with higher or lower ecological risk. It was concluded that the selected ecologically-relevant indicators could translate and synthesize the flow alteration resulting from CC. The projected climate change was observed to have the potential to increase the ecological risk of the Guadiana River Basin, a region for which projections indicate increased future mean temperatures and decreased mean precipitation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the financial support of the Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, through the project “Development of a Methodology to Integrate Climate Change effects in Water Resources Management on a Portuguese River Basin” (PTDC/AAC-AMB/115587/2009). An acknowledgement is also made to EDP – Gestão da Produção de Energia, by the first author, concerning the financial support provided during the elaboration of this paper. The authors would like to acknowledge Levi Brekke (US Bureau of Reclamation) for the scientific support provided. The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments that improve the manuscript. An initial version of this paper has been presented at the 9th World Congress of the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) “Water Resources Management in a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities”, Istanbul, Turkey, June 10–13, 2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Vanessa Ramos, Rodrigo Maia & Bruno Oliveira

  2. Department of Biology, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Nuno Formigo

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  1. Vanessa Ramos
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  2. Rodrigo Maia
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  3. Nuno Formigo
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  4. Bruno Oliveira
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Correspondence to Vanessa Ramos.

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Ramos, V., Maia, R., Formigo, N. et al. Assessment of Ecological Risk Based on Projected Hydrological Alteration. Environ. Process. 3, 569–587 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40710-016-0164-0

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