TY - JOUR
T1 - Linking water-resource models to ecosystem-response models to guide water-resource planning - an example from the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia
AU - Lester, Rebecca
AU - Webster, Ian
AU - Fairweather, Peter
AU - Young, William
PY - 2011
Y1 - 2011
N2 - Objectively assessing ecological benefits of competing watering strategies is difficult. We present a framework of coupled models to compare scenarios, using the Coorong, the estuary for the MurrayDarling River system in South Australia, as a case study. The framework links outputs from recent modelling of the effects of climate change on water availability across the MurrayDarling Basin to a hydrodynamic model for the Coorong, and then an ecosystem-response model. The approach has significant advantages, including the following: (1) evaluating management actions is straightforward because of relatively tight coupling between impacts on hydrology and ecology; (2) scenarios of 111 years reveal the impacts of realistic climatic and flow variability on Coorong ecology; and (3) ecological impact is represented in the model by a series of ecosystem states, integrating across many organisms, not just iconic species. We applied the approach to four flow scenarios, comparing conditions without development, current water-use levels, and two predicted future climate scenarios. Simulation produced a range of hydrodynamic conditions and consequent distributions of ecosystem states, allowing managers to compare scenarios. This approach could be used with many climates and/or management actions for optimisation of flow delivery to environmental assets.
AB - Objectively assessing ecological benefits of competing watering strategies is difficult. We present a framework of coupled models to compare scenarios, using the Coorong, the estuary for the MurrayDarling River system in South Australia, as a case study. The framework links outputs from recent modelling of the effects of climate change on water availability across the MurrayDarling Basin to a hydrodynamic model for the Coorong, and then an ecosystem-response model. The approach has significant advantages, including the following: (1) evaluating management actions is straightforward because of relatively tight coupling between impacts on hydrology and ecology; (2) scenarios of 111 years reveal the impacts of realistic climatic and flow variability on Coorong ecology; and (3) ecological impact is represented in the model by a series of ecosystem states, integrating across many organisms, not just iconic species. We applied the approach to four flow scenarios, comparing conditions without development, current water-use levels, and two predicted future climate scenarios. Simulation produced a range of hydrodynamic conditions and consequent distributions of ecosystem states, allowing managers to compare scenarios. This approach could be used with many climates and/or management actions for optimisation of flow delivery to environmental assets.
KW - climate change
KW - Coorong
KW - ecosystem states
KW - environmental flows
KW - environmental management
KW - hydrodynamic modelling
KW - Ramsar wetland
KW - water extraction
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79953200147&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1071/MF09298
DO - 10.1071/MF09298
M3 - Article
VL - 62
SP - 279
EP - 289
JO - Marine and Freshwater Research
JF - Marine and Freshwater Research
SN - 1323-1650
IS - 3
ER -