Open Access
Subscription or Fee Access
An Interdisciplinary Study of the Effects of Groundwater Extraction on Freshwater Fishes
Richard A. Jacobson, Glenn S. Warner, Piotr Parasiewicz, Amvrossios C. Bagtzoglou, Fred L. Ogden
Abstract
The aquatic communities in fluvial systems are to a large extent an expression of the dynamic inter- and intra-annual variability in the hydrologic regime of that system and region. To assess the degree to which alteration of the hydrologic regime has affected expressions of ecological integrity, it is necessary to construct reference hydrologic conditions, altered flow regimes, and metrics of change from the reference condition. In this work, an interdisciplinary approach is applied to assess the effects of groundwater extraction on aquatic fauna (brown trout, tessellated darter, and fallfish) in a case study involving the University of Connecticut Fenton River Well Field, Storrs, Connecticut. The study design addressed the interactive components of longitudinal, vertical and temporal connectivity, emphasizing the interaction of biology and, groundwater and surface water hydrology. The development of a simulated discharge time-series and quantification of the degree of effect of groundwater extraction on discharge were central to defining a water management strategy to minimize deviations in intra- and inter-annual habitat availability. Implementation of this strategy involves adjusting groundwater extraction rates based on the magnitude and duration of daily stream discharge. Applying species specific and community habitat thresholds (common, critical and rare) and corresponding maximum durations as fixed flow rules would have avoided the habitat depletion events observed in the summer of 2005.
Keywords
instream flow needs, PHABSIM, time-series analysis, groundwater extraction, simulated hydrograph, groundwater modeling, MODFLOW
Full Text:
PDF
Disclaimer/Regarding indexing issue:
We have provided the online access of all issues and papers to the indexing agencies (as given on journal web site). It’s depend on indexing agencies when, how and what manner they can index or not. Hence, we like to inform that on the basis of earlier indexing, we can’t predict the today or future indexing policy of third party (i.e. indexing agencies) as they have right to discontinue any journal at any time without prior information to the journal. So, please neither sends any question nor expects any answer from us on the behalf of third party i.e. indexing agencies.Hence, we will not issue any certificate or letter for indexing issue. Our role is just to provide the online access to them. So we do properly this and one can visit indexing agencies website to get the authentic information. Also: DOI is paid service which provided by a third party. We never mentioned that we go for this for our any journal. However, journal have no objection if author go directly for this paid DOI service.