- Title
- The development of water quality methods within ecological Reserve assessments, and links to environmental flows
- Creator
- Palmer, Carolyn G
- Creator
- Rossouw, N
- Creator
- Muller, Nikite W J
- Creator
- Scherman, Patricia A
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date Issued
- 2005
- Date
- 2005
- Type
- text
- Type
- report
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/438033
- Identifier
- vital:73430
- Identifier
- ISBN 0378-4738
- Identifier
- https://wrcwebsite.azurewebsites.net/wp-content/uploads/mdocs/WaterSA_2005_02_1634.pdf
- Description
- In the South African National Water Act (NWA, No 36 of 1998), the eco-logical Reserve is defined as the quality and quantity of water required to ensure appropriate protection of water resources, so as to secure ecologically sustainable development and use. Aquatic ecosystems are recognised as the core location of water resources, and although con-siderable progress has been made in developing methods for quantify-ing environmental flow requirements, this paper describes and discuss-es the first agreed method for quantifying environmental water quality requirements in an ecological Reserve assessment. Integration of flow and water quality is emphasised, and is based on the philosophy that environmental flows should be motivated to provide ecologically im-portant flow-related habitat, or geomorphological function, but should not be motivated to solve water quality problems by dilution. Water qual-ity is multivariate, and not all variables can be considered in an ecologi-cal Reserve assessment, but core water quality variables include: sys-tem variables (salts, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, temperature), nutrients (phosphate, nitrite, nitrate) and toxic substances (those listed in the South African Water Quality Guidelines for Aquatic Ecosystems, includ-ing toxic metal ions, toxic organic substances, and/or substances from a chemical inventory of an effluent or discharge). In addition, biological indicator data (eg SASS data), chlorophyll-a (eg phytoplankton and pe-riphyton data) and toxicity test data may be used. For each variable, a concentration range or response is linked to a class within a water re-source classification system, where classes range from minimally to severely modified.
- Format
- 10 pages
- Format
- Publisher
- Water Research Commission
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Palmer, C.G., Rossouw, N., Muller, W.J. and Scherman, P.A., 2005. The development of water quality methods within ecological Reserve assessments, and links to environmental flows. Water SA, 31(2), pp.161-170
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Water Research Commission Terms and Conditions of Use Statement (https://www.gov.za/terms-and-conditions-use-0)
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Palmer, Carolyn Gay (Tally) (Prof)
Muller, Nikite Wilhelmine Josephine (Dr)
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