PARENT SESSION
Symposium 7: When the Rivers Run Dry: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Societal Responses to Drought and Ecosystem Impacts
Organized by: A Covich and C Pringle
Tuesday, August 5. 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM, SITCC Oglethorpe Auditorium.
A River Runs To It: The effects of changing inflow to estuaries.
Alber, Merryl1, 1 University of Georgia, Athens, GA
ABSTRACT- An often-overlooked consideration in the management of freshwater flow in rivers is the eventual effect that different flow regimes could have on coastal ecosystems. Changes in freshwater inflow (in terms of the quantity, quality, and timing of water delivery) affect estuarine conditions (such as salinity and concentrations of dissolved and particulate material), and, in turn, estuarine resources (such as the distribution and abundance of organisms). This paper will provide an overview of the scientific evidence for the consequences of changing freshwater inflow to estuaries, and then present a conceptual model that explores the roles of scientists, citizens, politicians, and managers in developing management approaches to address this issue. The premise of the conceptual model is that the goal of estuarine freshwater inflow policy is to protect those resources and functions that we as a society value in estuaries, and that management measures use scientific information about the relationships among inflow, conditions, and resources to establish inflow standards that can meet this goal. The model will be used to explore the ways in which freshwater inflow criteria were established for Texas, Florida, and California, as well as to describe progress towards the development of freshwater inflow relationships for Georgia estuaries.
Key words: estuary, freshwater inflow, management