Hydrological regime assessment

Hydrological regime assessment

Type

Hydromorphological assessment methods

Brief description

Methods for the assessment of hydrological regime alteration analyze specific hydrological indicators of rivers and streams to assess the impact of human pressures on the hydrological regime. They often focus on alterations which affect the longitudinal continuity of water flow (e.g. intakes, impoundment, diversions) and mainly focus on the reach scale. Methods widely use models to obtain data from ungauged reaches or incomplete data series. We reviewed 10 methods in total (4 for European countries and 6 for non-European countries).

Strengths, limitations and gaps

Methods for the assessment of hydrological regime alteration make use of indicators derived by quantitative, statistical or physically-based models. This implies the use of existing large data sets and long-time series, which represent the main limitation. Moreover these methods often do not take into account small scale hydrological alterations (e.g. hydropeaking) as well as groundwater/surface interactions, important for organisms.