Hydrological changes and ecological impacts associated with water resource development in large floodplain rivers in the Australian tropics

Catherine Leigh, Fran Sheldon, 2008
River Research and Applications, v. 24(9) :1251 - 1270
We examined flow variability in large floodplain rivers in the Gulf of Carpentaria, northern Australia, and the potential ecological impacts of future water resource development (WRD). Flow metrics based on long-term records were used to classify flow regimes and predict hydrological drivers of ecological function. Flow regimes of selected rivers were then compared with those simulated for pre- and post-WRD flows in the Darling River. We propose that flow permanence and regularity; flow variability and absence; and wet-dry seasonality are the key hydrological drivers of biodiversity and ecological function in the floodplain rivers of Australia's north. Reduced and homogenized habitat, loss of life-history cues, inhibited dispersal and shifts in community composition, as a result of WRD, threaten the ecological integrity of rivers adapted to the three hydrological drivers above.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/117954745/abstract