Incorporating environmental flows into “water stress” Indicator 6.4.2
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The environmental flows concept entered water management discussions in the mid to late 20th century after extensive dam construction led to large scale obstruction of free-flowing rivers and a noticeable loss of ecosystem services and natural habitats and biodiversity. In 2019 FAO published guidelines to incorporate environmental flows into the calculation of water stress using the Global Environmental Flows Information System, which provides an estimation of the environmental flows at a global level using the incident biodiversity threat index to estimate the environmental management class for the present day. Understanding the concept of environmental management class and learning how to determine it is needed to assess the environmental flow and to calculate the level of water stress, so being crucial to manage water resources sustainably while allowing enough water for human needs. In water resource planning and management, environmental flow is often represented as a percentage of annual flow when calculating the annual indicator for water stress. In fact, there is no single amount or percentage of water that can describe the environmental flows of a river, since the ecological and hydrological context should always be considered in its complexity. This paper is addressed to river basin managers, environmental engineers and river ecologists. It complements the 2019 FAO guidelines by describing how the condition of the ecosystem as defined by the environmental management class influences the estimation of environmental flows, and illustrates how the environmental management class can be determined for a given branch of a river.