CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Waite Campus, Urrbrae, South Australia 5064, Australia.
Ecol Appl. 2013 Jul;23(5):999-1016. doi: 10.1890/12-2104.1.
Investment in and operation of flow control infrastructure such as dams, weirs, and regulators can help increase both the health of regulated river ecosystems and the social values derived from them. This requires high-quality and high-resolution spatiotemporal ecohydrological and socioeconomic information. We developed such an information base for integrated environmental flow management in the River Murray in South Australia (SA). A hydrological model was used to identify spatiotemporal inundation dynamics. River ecosystems were classified and mapped as ecohydrological units. Ecological response models were developed to link three aspects of environmental flows (flood duration, timing, and inter-flood period) to the health responses of 16 ecological components at various life stages. Potential infrastructure investments (flow control regulators and irrigation pump relocation) were located by interpreting LiDAR elevation data, digital orthophotography, and wetland mapping information; and infrastructure costs were quantified using engineering cost models. Social values were quantified at a coarse scale as total economic value based on a national survey of willingness-to-pay for four key ecological assets; and at a local scale using mapped ecosystem service values. This information was integrated using a constrained, nonlinear, mixed-integer, compromise programming optimization model and solved using a stochastic Tabu search algorithm. We tested the model uncertainty and sensitivity using 390 Monte Carlo model runs at varying weights of ecological health vs. social values. Integrating ecohydrological and socioeconomic information identified environmental flow management regimes that efficiently achieved both ecological and social objectives. Using an ecologically weighted efficient and socially weighted efficient scenario, we illustrated model outputs including a suite of cost-effective infrastructure investments and an operational plan for new and existing flow control structures including dam releases, weir height manipulation, and regulator operation on a monthly time step. Both the investments and management regimes differed substantially between the two scenarios, suggesting that the choice of weightings on ecological and social objectives is important. This demonstrates the benefit of integrating high-quality and high-resolution spatiotemporal ecohydrological and socioeconomic information for guiding the investment in and operational management of environmental flows.
投资和运营流量控制基础设施，如水坝、堰和调水站，可以帮助提高受管制河流生态系统的健康水平以及从中获得的社会效益。这需要高质量和高分辨率的时空生态水文学和社会经济信息。我们为南澳大利亚州（SA）默里河的综合环境流量管理开发了这样一个信息基础。利用水文模型来确定时空淹没动态。对河流生态系统进行分类并绘制生态水文学单元图。开发生态响应模型将环境流的三个方面（洪水持续时间、时间和洪水间隔期）与 16 个不同生命阶段的生态组成部分的健康响应联系起来。通过解释激光雷达高程数据、数字正射影像和湿地图信息，确定潜在的基础设施投资（流量控制调节器和灌溉泵搬迁）位置，并使用工程成本模型量化基础设施成本。社会价值在粗尺度上以基于四项关键生态资产支付意愿的全国调查的总经济价值来量化；在细尺度上，使用映射的生态系统服务价值来量化。使用约束、非线性、混合整数、妥协规划优化模型对这些信息进行整合，并使用随机禁忌搜索算法进行求解。我们使用 390 次蒙特卡罗模型运行测试模型不确定性和敏感性，这些运行在生态健康与社会价值的权重变化下进行。整合生态水文学和社会经济信息确定了能够有效实现生态和社会效益的环境流量管理方案。使用生态加权有效和社会加权有效的方案，我们说明了模型输出，包括一系列具有成本效益的基础设施投资以及新的和现有的流量控制结构的运营计划，包括每月时间步长的大坝放水、堰高操纵和调节器运行。两个方案中的投资和管理方案都有很大差异，这表明对生态和社会目标的权重选择很重要。这表明了整合高质量和高分辨率时空生态水文学和社会经济信息来指导环境流量投资和运营管理的好处。
