Physical Habitat Modeling and Ecohydrological Tools

Abstract

There is a growing consensus that ecohydrological and hydraulic-habitat tools should be combined when predicting the ecological effects of water management scenarios in rivers. We describe the principles of these technical tools, their predictive power, and their role within more general approaches for defining environmental water regimes. Using recent case studies, we illustrate how these tools quantify the expected impacts of hydrological and habitat alteration on aquatic communities, at the scale of stream reaches or whole catchments. In particular, we describe the potential of catchment-scale ecohydrological assessments for regionalizing environmental water regimes. We also illustrate th..