TY - JOUR
T1 - Frequency of occurrence of flow regime components
T2 - a hydrology-based approach for environmental flow assessments and water allocation for the environment
AU - Salinas-Rodríguez, Sergio A.
AU - Sánchez-Navarro, Rafael
AU - Barrios-Ordóñez, J. Eugenio
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Hydrological methodologies are the most efficient approaches for environmental flow (eflow) assessments. This paper presents a hydrological methodology for determining eflows in rivers with scarce development to promote proactive environmental water allocations that limit flow alteration and unsustainable water use. The analysis includes the natural intra-annual and inter-annual ranges of flow variability. Eflows are determined based on four hydrological low-flow conditions and a flood regime. The main contribution is that the flow regime components are adjusted to a four-tiered environmental objective class system based on a novel “frequency-of-occurrence” approach. The method is applied in three rivers in western Mexico with highly variable flow regimes. The eflows are largely (96%) within the central range of previous implementations, and the outcomes reveal an overall good and acceptable level of the method’s performance (for 83% of the cases R 2 ≥ 0.84, slope = 1 ± ≤ 0.2), consistent with supporting indices of flow variability.
AB - Hydrological methodologies are the most efficient approaches for environmental flow (eflow) assessments. This paper presents a hydrological methodology for determining eflows in rivers with scarce development to promote proactive environmental water allocations that limit flow alteration and unsustainable water use. The analysis includes the natural intra-annual and inter-annual ranges of flow variability. Eflows are determined based on four hydrological low-flow conditions and a flood regime. The main contribution is that the flow regime components are adjusted to a four-tiered environmental objective class system based on a novel “frequency-of-occurrence” approach. The method is applied in three rivers in western Mexico with highly variable flow regimes. The eflows are largely (96%) within the central range of previous implementations, and the outcomes reveal an overall good and acceptable level of the method’s performance (for 83% of the cases R 2 ≥ 0.84, slope = 1 ± ≤ 0.2), consistent with supporting indices of flow variability.
KW - environmental flows
KW - environmental water allocation
KW - flow regime
KW - frequency of occurrence
KW - hydrology-based method
KW - variability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097616142&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/02626667.2020.1849705
DO - 10.1080/02626667.2020.1849705
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097616142
SN - 0262-6667
VL - 66 (2021)
SP - 193
EP - 213
JO - Hydrological Sciences Journal
JF - Hydrological Sciences Journal
IS - 2
ER -