Ecological limits of hydrologic alteration: a test of the ELOHA framework in south-east Queensland

Abstract

This Waterlines provides a summary of the key findings of the project Hydro-ecological relationships and thresholds to inform environmental flow management and river restoration. It is the first study in Australia to explore the scientific and management implications of the ELOHA (Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration) framework for regional environmental flow assessment. The ELOHA trial was funded by the National Water Commission through the Raising National Water Standards program, hosted and managed by the International Water Centre and undertaken by the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University in Brisbane, Queensland. The ELOHA framework is a new approach to informing the regional development of environmental flow guidelines that explicitly takes into account spatial variation in flow regimes as well as the potential influence of other environmental variables such as climate and land-use. In its entirety, the ELOHA framework includes both a biophysical and a social module. Using south-east Queensland as a study region, this project aimed to test the four central concepts of the ELOHA framework’s biophysical module.