Angela H Arthington

• Ph D, McGill
• Professor Emeritus at Griffith University

Freshwater biodiversity is the over-riding conservation priority during the International Decade for Action - 'Water for Life' - 2005 to 2015. Fresh water makes up only 0.01% of the World's water and approximately 0.8% of the Earth's surface, yet this tiny fraction of global water supports at least 100000 species out of approximately 1.8 million -...

1. Natural biogeochemical processes and diverse communities of aquatic biota regulate freshwater quantity and quality in ways that are not sufficiently acknowledged nor appreciated by the water resources management community. The establishment and enforcement of environmental flow requirements offer promising means to improve and care for these cri...

Despite their limited spatial extent, freshwater ecosystems host remarkable biodiversity, including one third of all vertebrate species. This biodiversity is declining dramatically: globally, wetlands are vanishing three times faster than forests, and freshwater vertebrate populations have fallen more than twice as steeply as terrestrial or marine...

Protected areas are a global cornerstone of biodiversity conservation and restoration. Yet freshwater biodiversity is continuing to decline rapidly. To date there has been no formal review of the effectiveness of protected areas for conserving or restoring biodiversity in rivers, lakes, and wetlands. We present the first assessment using a systemat...

River flows connect people, places, and other forms of life, inspiring and sustaining diverse cultural beliefs, values, and ways of life. The concept of environmental flows provides a framework for improving understanding of relationships between river flows and people, and for supporting those that are mutually beneficial. Nevertheless, most appro...

We conducted the first comprehensive global assessment of the extinction risk of Australia's native freshwater fishes. Using International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria, 37 % (88 species) of the 241 assessed species were threatened (Critically Endangered, Endangered or Vulnerable), with one being Extinct. Lepidogalaxiidae and Neo...

Environmental flows (e-flows) aim to mitigate the threat of altered hydrological regimes in river systems and connected waterbodies and are an important component of integrated strategies to address multiple threats to freshwater biodiversity. Expanding and accelerating implementation of e-flows can support river conservation and help to restore th...

Freshwater biodiversity, from fish to frogs and microbes to macrophytes, provides a vast array of services to people. Mounting concerns focus on the accelerating pace of biodiversity loss and declining ecological function within freshwater ecosystems that continue to threaten these natural benefits. Here, we catalog nine fundamental ecosystem servi...

Freshwater biodiversity, from fish to frogs and microbes to macrophytes, provides a vast array of services to people. Mounting concerns focus on the accelerating pace of biodiversity loss and declining ecological function within freshwater ecosystems that continue to threaten these natural benefits. Here, we catalog nine fundamental ecosystem servi...

Islands provide the opportunity to explore management regimes and research issues related to the isolation, uniqueness, and integrity of ecological systems. K’gari (Fraser Island) is an Australian World Heritage property listed based on its outstanding natural value, specifically, the unique wilderness characteristics and the diversity of ecosystem...

The critical role of hydrology in tropical floodplain river systems is well established, but there is limited information on the drivers of larval and juvenile recruitment of freshwater fishes in small tropical rivers. Herein we describe the patterns of occurrence and abundance of fish larvae, juveniles and adults in the lower reaches of a short, d...

This datasheet on Gambusia holbrooki covers Identity, Overview, Distribution, Dispersal, Diagnosis, Biology & Ecology, Environmental Requirements, Natural Enemies, Impacts, Uses, Prevention/Control, Further Information.

• The paper ‘Biodiversity values of remnant freshwater floodplain lagoons in agricultural catchments: evidence for fish of the Wet Tropics bioregion, northern Australia’, published in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems in 2015, has contributed in several ways to the integration of freshwater wetland science within new catchment...

Nomination details for the Cooper Creek Catfish. The data recorded are comprehensive and up to date.

There is limited information available on the ecology of planktonic invertebrate assemblages of small tropical lowland rivers, despite zooplankton being a vital resource for larval fish. Herein we describe the spatial patterns and temporal dynamics of invertebrate zooplankton at 8 locations over a 25-month period in the lowland section of a short c...

Recent environmental flow management in the Murray‐Darling Basin, south‐eastern Australia, has centered on restoring natural flooding regimes to meet ecological requirements, including the promotion of native fish recruitment, despite uncertainty about the effectiveness of managed environmental flooding. This study investigated recruitment response...

The water requirements of rivers are the main focus of this article, which traces the history of environmental flow assessment methods, the emergence of holistic ecosystem level environmental flow frameworks, the details of three of these (DRIFT, ELOHA, FERGRA), and the diversification and expanding scales and scope of their applications. The chapt...

The IUCN Red List is a critical indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity. Far more than a list of species and their status, it is a powerful tool to inform and catalyze action for biodiversity conservation and policy change, critical to protecting the natural resources we need to survive. It provides information about range, population s...

• The catchments of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia include more than one million ha of wetlands, which help to sustain the health and resilience of the reef. • This article reviews the status, values, and threats of wetlands in the GBR catchments, as well as the management, protection, and challenges and opportunities for their restorati...

Freshwater ecosystems have the greatest species diversity per unit area and many endangered species. This book shows that, rather than being a marginal part of terrestrial protected area management, freshwater conservation is central to sustaining global biodiversity. It focuses on better practices for conserving inland aquatic ecosystems in protec...

Environmental water management has become a global imperative in response to environmental degradation and the growing recognition that human well-being and livelihoods are critically dependent on freshwater ecosystems and the ecological functions and services they provide. Although a wide range of techniques and strategies for planning and impleme...

A decade ago, scientists and practitioners working in environmental water management crystallized the progress and direction of environmental flows science, practice, and policy in The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda (2007), during the 10th International Riversymposium and International Environmental Flows Conference held in Brisbane,...

A decade ago, scientists and practitioners working in environmental water management crystallized the progress and direction of environmental flows science, practice, and policy in The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda (2007), during the 10th International Riversymposium and International Environmental Flows Conference held in Brisbane,...

The ELOHA framework addresses the demand for transferable hydroecological relationships and environmental flow guidelines for many rivers across large spatial scales. The framework is sufficiently flexible to inform decisions at the planning stage of new developments by predicting likely ecological responses to proposed changes in flow regime, or c...

The term environmental flows relates to the trade-offbetween keeping water in a wetland system to meet ecosystem requirements and services to dependent people (such as food, recreation, and cultural identity) versus realizing the direct benefits of removing the water for drinking, growing food, and supporting industry. It describes the quantity, qu...

The Lake Eyre Basin in the heart of the outback of Australia is a place in which the social-ecological system is not only highly dependent on but is also defined by the intermittent presence and absence of water. Tributary rivers of this hydrologic system arise in Queensland and the Northern Territory and feed the landlocked Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre i...

• The implementation of environmental flow regimes offers a promising means to protect and restore riverine, wetland and estuarine ecosystems, their critical environmental services and cultural/societal values. • This Special Issue expands the scope of environmental flows and water science in theory and practice, offering 20 papers from academics,...

Significant progress in environmental flow management has occurred in recent years due to several factors. These include governments committing to environmental flow programs, significant progress in scientific understanding, and environmental flow assessment methods that are cognizant of stakeholder participation and co-design. However, there rema...

Human activities create threats that have consequences for freshwater ecosystems and, in most watersheds, observed ecological responses are the result of complex interactions among multiple threats and their associated ecological alterations. Here we discuss the value of considering multiple threats in research and management, offer suggestions for...

Although there has been significant progress in environmental water management across the globe, a number of challenges remain in the establishment and delivery of environmental water regimes on the ground—the implementation challenge. This final chapter focuses on the directions to achieve successful implementation of environmental water policies...

Environmental flows assessment science focuses largely on defining how modified flow regimes (from water infrastructure and direct water abstraction) can be managed to conserve or restore societally desired ecological conditions in rivers and other wetland systems. The foundations of the science are based on hydroecological understanding and knowle...

Environmental flows assessments use advanced hydrologic and hydraulic modeling techniques to quantify changes in flow regime and aquatic habitats. However, predictions of ecological responses to these changes are often based upon expert opinion or limited quantitative relationships between flow, habitat, and ecological response. Increasing knowledg...

The ELOHA framework addresses the demand for transferable hydroecological relationships and environmental flow guidelines for many rivers across large spatial scales. The framework is sufficiently flexible to inform decisions at the planning stage of new developments by predicting likely ecological responses to proposed changes in flow regime, or c...

Freshwater wetlands of the Moreton Bay region and bay islands are prominent landscape features of high biodiversity providing essential ecological functions and services to people. Queensland’s wetlands have been classified as lacustrine, palustrine, riverine, estuarine, marine and subterranean on a state scale. Freshwater wetlands are home to over...

The term environmental flows relates to the trade-off between keeping water in a wetland system to meet ecosystem requirements and services to dependent people (such as food, recreation, and cultural identity) versus realizing the direct benefits of removing the water for drinking, growing food, and supporting industry. It describes the quantity, q...

Despite the disparities in size and volume of marine and freshwater realms, a strikingly similar number of species is found in each – with 15 150 Actinopterygian fishes in fresh water and 14 740 in the marine realm. Their ecological and societal values are widely recognized yet many marine and freshwater fishes increasingly risk local, regional or...

In many intermittent, dryland rivers, fish are confined to isolated waterholes for much of the year. It is only during brief flow events, which typify the hydrology of these systems, that fish are able to move between waterholes and explore surrounding habitat. Because most of the river channel will dry afterwards, there is a strong advantage for s...

Floodplain lagoons in the Queensland Wet Tropics bioregion, Australia, are important and threatened habitats for fish. As part of studies to assess their ecological condition and functions, we examined patterns of occurrence of fish larvae, juveniles and adults in 10 permanent lagoons on the Tully–Murray floodplain. Lagoons contained early life-his...

Figure S1. Box and whisker plots of riparian vegetation metrics across flow classes for rivers of subtropical south east Queensland. Figure S2. Box and whisker plots of abundance of common riparian species (per ha) across flow classes for rivers of subtropical south east Queensland. Figure S3. Box and whisker plots of environmental variables acro...

The primary objective of this study was to test the relevance of hydrological classification and class differences to the characteristics of woody riparian vegetation in a subtropical landscape in Queensland, Australia. We followed classification procedures of the environmental flow framework ELOHA – Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration. Ripa...

At present, inland fisheries are not often a national or regional governance priority and as a result, inland capture fisheries are undervalued and largely overlooked. As such they are threatened in both developing and developed countries. Indeed, due to lack of reliable data, inland fisheries have never been part of any high profile global fisheri...

Dryland river foodwebs are thought to be largely driven by autochthonous production derived from littoral/benthic algae, particularly during extended periods of zero flow, with allochthonous production taking primacy after flooding as floodplain carbon is distributed into waterholes during flood recession. This study tested whether we could detect...

This book is available online at http://press.anu.edu.au

The Ecological Limits of Hydrologic Alteration (ELOHA) is a new framework designed to develop environmental flow prescriptions for many streams and rivers in a user‐defined geographic region or jurisdiction. This study presents hydrologic classifications and comparisons of natural and altered flows in southeast Queensland, Australia, to support the...

Dryland rivers in arid and semi-arid regions drain approximately one-third of the Earth's land area, yet basic aspects of their ecology are poorly documented and many are threatened by excessive water use leading to alterations of the flow regime. Management of dryland rivers imperilled by changes to the flow regime requires quantitative hydro-ecol...

Temporary streams and rivers, also referred to as intermittent, are defined as waterways that cease to flow at some points in space and time along their course. They are shaped by alternating wet and dry periods over annual and inter-annual cycles, making them one of the most dynamic freshwater ecosystems. These distinctive systems represent a subs...

The ecological condition and biodiversity values of floodplain wetlands are highly dependent on the hydrological connectivity of wetlands to adjacent rivers. This paper describes a method for quantifying connectivity between floodplain wetlands and the main rivers in a wet tropical catchment of northern Australia. We used a one-dimensional hydrodyn...

The term ?environmental flows? describes the quantities, quality, and patterns of water flows required to sustain freshwater and estuarine ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide. Environmental flows may be achieved in a number of different ways, most of which are based on either (1) limiting alterations from the natural flow baseline to...

Tropical floodplain wetlands are among the world's most threatened and poorly documented freshwater ecosystems. This paper describes patterns of fish diversity in remnant freshwater lagoons in relation to natural environmental gradients and impacts of agriculture in the Tully–Murray catchment, Queensland Wet Tropics bioregion (QWT), in north‐easter...

Floodplain rivers worldwide are threatened by loss of connectivity to their floodplains and hence reduced benefits from floodplain energy subsidies. Dryland rivers with ‘boom and bust’ ecological responses to flooding and extended dry periods may be particularly vulnerable. This paper describes variations in dietary composition of three fish specie...

The endorheic Lake Eyre Basin drains 1.2 million square kilometres of arid central Australia, yet provides habitat for only 30 species of freshwater fish due to the scarcity of water and extreme climate. The majority are hardy riverine species that are adapted to the unpredictable flow regimes, and capable of massive population booms following heav...

Water managers need quantitative information on the effects of hydrologic alteration on aquatic biota to guide ecologically sensitive water management strategies such as water releases from dams. A key gap in the global research literature is determining whether low levels of hydrologic alteration have significant effects on fish populations and as...

Effective environmental flow management depends on identification of ecologically-relevant flow attributes to maintain or restore in the context of other natural and human influences on stream ecosystems. This study in sub-tropical eastern Australia identified associations of fish with climatic and flow gradients, catchment topography, reach geolog...

The 10 th International Riversymposium and Environmental Flows Conference (a partnership between Riversymposium and The Nature Conservancy) to be held in Brisbane, Queensland in September 2007 could not be held at a more important time or in a more fitting place. Much of eastern Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in 1 0 0 y e a r s . O u...

Flow regime, water quality and biological interactions between rivers and floodplains Research has shown that to protect freshwater ecosystems, and maintain the goods and services that rivers provide to society, requires a variable flow regime. Preferably, the regime closely mimics natural historical patterns of flow magnitude, frequency, timing, d...

Arid zone catchments experience extreme hydrological variability and some rivers are entirely ephemeral, replenished only by intermittent flooding. The ecological roles of ephemeral systems are rarely studied. This paper describes movement patterns of fish in the Mulligan River, an ephemeral system in the Lake Eyre Basin, central Australia. Several...

Providing flows for biota and environmental processes is a challenging water management issue. For society the ability and willingness to allocate water to sustain the environment is increasingly competitive due to escalating demand and as a consequence of climate change. In response, an array of environmental flow (E-flow) methods have developed....

Human water security is often achieved with little consideration of environmental consequences and, even when these are acknowledged, the trade-offs between human and environmental water needs are increasing in frequency and amplitude on the increase. The environmental flows concept has continued to evolve in response to these challenges. However,...

We investigated the biophysical environment, invertebrate fauna and ecosystem health of lagoons on the Tully–Murray floodplain in the Queensland Wet Tropics bioregion. These wetlands are biologically rich but have declined in area and condition with agricultural development and are poorly protected, despite being located between two World Heritage...

Environmental monitoring is an essential feature of environmental assessment and natural resource management. Whilst the focus of monitoring programs is often on the response of chosen variables to a disturbance of particular concern, it is also important to consider the variability of disturbance pressures in relation to the variability of the eco...

In spite of tremendous advances, setting limits to hydrologic alteration of rivers, groundwater, and wetlands remains the core challenge for environmental flow science and management. Where should those responsible draw the boundaries of acceptable change in a river or estuary's flow regime, or a wetland's water regime? This chapter reviews recent...

Converting recommendations from environmental flow assessments into management actions that produce the desired river flow regime has lagged behind the assessment process in most countries. Two major forms of regulatory process may be involved in the provision of an environmental flow regime, known as restrictive (e.g., sustainable diversion limits...

This chapter presents broad principles that inform river restoration by means of adjustments to regulated flow regimes, and describes frameworks designed to cope with situations of limited technical knowledge and capacity, as well as more advanced developments, including dam removal. Some river restoration projects take the form of long-term scient...

River ecosystems are four-dimensional systems, with longitudinal, lateral, and vertical components, relationships, and processes; temporal vectors add the fourth dimension. The overriding importance of dynamic flow patterns in streams and rivers is captured in the Natural Flow Regime Paradigm. More general hydro-ecological principles conceptualise...

Integration of environmental flows into land, water, and energy management requires legislation, policies, and regulations. This chapter offers an overview of instruments available at local, regional, and national scales, and across political boundaries. Legislation and policies that explicitly regulate environmental flow provisions vary from count...

Aquatic ecosystems are particularly sensitive to climate change due to the high heat capacity of water, the probability of altered thermal regimes, and changes to coupled thermal-hydrological variability. This chapter draws together the strategies, options, and processes available to protect and restore vulnerable aquatic ecosystems and threatened...

Escalating human demands for fresh water are jeopardising the intrinsic biodiversity values, ecological health, and vital ecosystem services of the rivers, wetlands, and estuaries upon which millions of humans depend for water, food, and secure housing, as well as for quality of life, health, and prosperity. Climate change exacerbates these pressur...

Global patterns of climatic variation provide a broad context for discussing geographic variation in river flow regimes and their classification. Climatically driven hydrologic signatures of individual rivers can be described in terms of the magnitude, frequency, seasonal timing or predictability, duration, and rate of change of hydrologic conditio...

Hydraulic rating methods define the relationship between flow volume (discharge) and the amount and type of habitat provided during the passage of flow along a stream channel. Methods include wetted perimeter or area analysis, flow events method, and various habitat simulation techniques and frameworks. The Instream Flow Incremental Methodology (IF...

In the early 1990s, river scientists made the case for a broader, holistic approach to sustain and conserve river ecosystems rather than focusing on the habitat requirements of a few target species. Flow protection methods are designed to define and quantify the volumes and temporal patterns of stream discharge that should be preserved to flow down...

Water is delivered (drained) to each freshwater system from its catchment or drainage basin (watershed)-an area of land that collects precipitation and drains water to a common point in the landscape. Drainage networks can be described as dendritic (branching), trellised, rectangular, radial, centripetal, annular, and distributary. Many rivers flow...