Reducing Some Water Flow Rates May Bring Environmental Gains

[Staff]

Reducing Some Water Flow Rates May Bring Environmental Gains
ScienceDaily
Jan. 5, 2010

Reducing some water flow rates may bring environmental gains
excerpt from above:

The study, by C. Rhett Jackson and Catherine M. Pringle of the University of Georgia, analyzes a wide variety of examples in which creating or maintaining reduced flows can create ecological benefits. The presence of nonnative fishes in a river, for example, can argue for maintaining the isolation of some habitats that are separated from the main channel, because the nonnative species may imperil naturally occurring species. In other cases, novel vegetation that has grown up below a dam may be host to terrestrial animal populations, including endangered birds. Restoring natural water flows can lead to a change in the vegetation that is detrimental to the animals...