1 / 22

Minimum Flows and Levels for the Peace River

Minimum Flows and Levels for the Peace River. FLOW 2008 October, 2008 Marty Kelly http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/projects/mfl/. The Issues that Led to the Instream flows Process/Studies. The Policy Context. Minimum Flows and Levels - Florida Statutes, Section 373.042 -.

xanthe
Download Presentation

Minimum Flows and Levels for the Peace River

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Minimum Flows and Levels for the Peace River FLOW 2008 October, 2008 Marty Kelly http://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/projects/mfl/

  2. The Issues that Led to the Instream flows Process/Studies

  3. The Policy Context Minimum Flows and Levels- Florida Statutes, Section 373.042 - The minimum flow for a given watercourse shall be the limit at which further withdrawals would be significantly harmful to the water resources or ecology of the area

  4. The Science Done

  5. Flow Regime – Building Block Approach • Benchmark Period • Multiple MFLs - address seasonality • Percent of Flow Reduction Technique • Significant Harm - 15% reduction in available habitat Flow Regime gone Bad

  6. Minimum Flows and Levels • Components of an MFL (from Beecher 1990) • a goal – (e.g., non-degradation or, for the District’s purpose, protection from significant harm • identification of resources of interest to be protected • a unit of measure (e.g., flow in cfs, habitat in useable area, etc.) • a benchmark period, and • a protection standard statistic.

  7. Two Benchmark Periods Blame it on Hal………………

  8. 15% In their peer review report on the Upper Peace River, Gore et al. (2002) stated, “in general, instream flow analysts consider a loss of more than 15% habitat, as compared to undisturbed or current conditions, to be a significant impact on that population or assemblage."

  9. Low Flow Threshold - Wetted Perimeter Used for All Blocks

  10. Low Flow Threshold -Fish Passage Used for All Blocks

  11. Physical Habitat Simulation System Used for Blocks 1 and 2 • Depth •Velocity •Substrate

  12. Long-Term Inundation Analysis Used for Blocks 2 and 3 Floodplain Exposed Roots Snags

  13. The PreliminaryResultsFlow Prescription – Percent of Flow and Seasonality (middle Peace River at Arcadia)

  14. Dynamic - Salinity Stationary Stationary vs. Dynamic Habitat

  15. Establishment of an MFL requires identification of a critical biologically-relevant variable that can be defensibly and quantitatively related to variation in freshwater flows. • The volume of water in the system less than a given salinity – e.g. available fish habitat in given salinity zone • The bottom area in the system less than a given salinity – e.g. benthic invertebrate habitat • The shoreline length in the system less than a given salinity – e.g. amount of shoreline vegetation

  16. Analytical Tools “Modelers are people who like to play with numbers, but don’t have the personality to become engineers.” – Jimmy Carter

  17. Based on Combined Flows of Horse, Joshua and Arcadia Gages LFT = 90 cfs

  18. The Public Dialogue • MFL Priority List and Schedule – Annual Update • Proposed MFL – Report for Peer Review and Public Dissemination • Public Meetings • Waterbody Advocates and TAC’s and NEP’s • Peer Review Report • Staff Response • (Recovery Strategy) $$$$$ • Rule Development • Rule Adoption • The Role of the Governing Board

  19. Recommendations for Others /Lessons Learned • Legislative mandate has greatly facilitated process • ad valorem taxing authority of WMDs • Peer review process • Recovery

  20. Recovery Strategies Peace River by P. Metz - USGS

  21. Questions Photo: Richard Gant – Silver River 2007 Florida photographic collection

More Related