Ecological flow analyses results: streamflow characteristics, predicted fish responses, and ecological withdrawal thresholds for select stream sites within the Cumberland and Tennessee River basins
Dates
Start Date
2017
End Date
2019
Publication Date
2019-08-23
Revision
2020-02-14
Citation
Driver, L.J., 2019, Ecological flow analyses results: streamflow characteristics, predicted fish responses, and ecological withdrawal thresholds for select stream sites within the Cumberland and Tennessee River basins: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/F7Q23Z4B.
Summary
Attention: minor changes to the title, citation, and attached files of this data release were made on 2/14/2020. See the attached file 'Revisions_2_14_2020.pdf' for details. Water management and conservation efforts can benefit from scientifically-derived guidelines for the permitting of water withdrawals that maintain the ecological health in streams while simultaneously maximizing water availability for industry, agriculture, drinking water, and waste treatment. Data contained within this data release builds upon the previous framework developed by Knight and others (2008, 2012, 2014, 2016) that established flow-ecology relationships in the Blue Ridge, Ridge and Valley, Interior Plateau, and Cumberland Plateau ecoregions within [...]
Summary
Attention: minor changes to the title, citation, and attached files of this data release were made on 2/14/2020. See the attached file 'Revisions_2_14_2020.pdf' for details.
Water management and conservation efforts can benefit from scientifically-derived guidelines for the permitting of water withdrawals that maintain the ecological health in streams while simultaneously maximizing water availability for industry, agriculture, drinking water, and waste treatment. Data contained within this data release builds upon the previous framework developed by Knight and others (2008, 2012, 2014, 2016) that established flow-ecology relationships in the Blue Ridge, Ridge and Valley, Interior Plateau, and Cumberland Plateau ecoregions within the Tennessee and Cumberland River basins. Specifically, Knight and others (2014) established ecological limit functions (ELF) that defined upper bounds responses of fish species richness to increasing departure from reference (i.e. increased hydrologic alteration) of specific sets of streamflow characteristics (SFC) for specific fish groups and ecoregions. This data release includes input data files and results used in support of the development of ecological flow analyses for predicting effects of surface-water withdrawal scenarios and minimum flow levels on fish species richness and identifying ecological withdrawal thresholds from select stream sites. Withdrawal thresholds were defined as the maximum amount of water withdrawal (either in % or m3/s) at which the predicted loss of fish species richness was <5% of that predicted under 'unaltered' flow conditions.
Surface-water withdrawal scenarios were constructed using two different model approaches: 1) percent-of-flow (POF) and 2) constant-rate (CR). The POF model simulates water withdrawals as a variable daily rate based on a set percentage of the measured daily streamflow. For each stream site, POF withdrawal scenarios were simulated across a range of percent withdrawal rates from 0 – 40% of measured daily streamflow in 1% increments. In contrast, the CR approach simulates water withdrawals as a constant daily withdrawal rate regardless of the ambient/measured background daily streamflow. CR withdrawal rates were simulated across a range from 0 – 0.025 m3/s in approximately 0.003 m3/s increments (equal to 0 – 0.9 cfs in 0.1 ft3/s increments) and from 0.028 – 1.415 m3/s in 0.028 m3/s increments (equal to 1 – 50 ft3/s in 1 ft3/s increments). In addition, four minimum flow levels (MFLs) were applied under each withdrawal model to investigate the potential effects of different levels of low-flow protections on fish species richness responses to incremental water withdrawals. MFLs were calculated individually for each stream site based 0, 5, 10, and 30% of the mean annual flow for each site.
"siteInfo.txt" contains the list of stream sites used in this analysis and additional site information. Results tables (.txt) for both POF and CR withdrawal models are contained within "SFC.zip", "Richness.zip", "Thresholds.zip", and "SumThresholds.zip" folders. Results files for both POF and CR models contain results for the following metrics for each stream site, withdrawal scenario, and minimum flow level: 1) calculated streamflow characteristics (folder = SFC); 2) calculated departures from hydrologic reference condition of each SFC (folder = SFC); 3) calculated cumulative departure from reference condition across specific sets of SFCs among 11 fish groups for each ecoregion (folder = Richness); 4) predicted fish species richness (folder = Richness); 5) predicted % change in fish richness for each incremental in water withdrawal (folder = Richness); 6) predicted ecological withdrawal thresholds at which the loss of predicted fish species richness is less than 5% (folder = Thresholds); 7) summary statistics for withdrawal thresholds (folder = SumThresholds).
Note: Data/results files are provided here in .txt format. Depending on their intented usage, these files may be best viewed and maniupulated using proprietary software (e.g., MS Excel). However, be aware that the formatting of some data fields (specifically "site_no", which contains leading zeros) may change when converted to .xlsx or .csv.
R scripts and supporting input data files included in the "INPUT.zip" folder contain methodological procedures and datasets required to successfully reproduce the output files. However, the R scripts and supporting files are NOT required in order to view and/or utilize the results data contained within "SFC.zip", "Richness.zip", "Thresholds.zip", and "SumThresholds.zip" folders. Further, the data sets within "INPUT/SupportingFiles" folder contain various information originally reported in previously published journal articles (see citations below) that were used in the current analysis. All script files are intended to be used with R statistical software (R Core Team 2018).
Streamflow characteristics calculated within these models were done so using functions within the EflowStats package (v4.1.1 or greater -- current version = v5.0.0; available at https://github.com/USGS-R/EflowStats) using R software (R Core Team 2018).
Instructions for downloading INPUT files for compatibility with R scripts:
If you intend to run any of the R scripts included in this data release, you will need to create and/or designate a single parent folder on your computer. For R scripts to work correctly, the INPUT.zip folder should be downloaded, saved, and unzipped within this parent folder. Each R script will instruct you to ‘set your working directory’ where you will need to modify the appropriate line of code to match the specific pathway to your parent folder, for example: setwd("C:/…/YourParentFolder”).
See the "README.pdf" for additional details regarding the use of INPUT R scripts and supporting data files to reproduce to the output results.
References:
Knight, R.R., Brian Gregory, M., and Wales, A.K., 2008, Relating streamflow characteristics to specialized insectivores in the Tennessee River Valley: a regional approach: Ecohydrology, v. 1, no. 4, p. 394–407, https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.32.
Knight, R.R., Gain, W.S., and Wolfe, W.J., 2012, Modelling ecological flow regime: an example from the Tennessee and Cumberland River basins: Ecohydrology, v. 5, no. 5, p. 613–627, https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.246.
Knight, R.R., Murphy, J.C., Wolfe, W.J., Saylor, C.F., and Wales, A.K., 2014, Ecological limit functions relating fish community response to hydrologic departures of the ecological flow regime in the Tennessee River basin, United States: Ecohydrology, p. 1262–1280, https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.1460.
Knight, R.R., Cartwright, J.M., and Ladd, D.E., 2016, Streamflow and fish community diversity data for use in developing ecological limit functions for the Cumberland Plateau, northeastern Middle Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky, 2016: U.S. Geological Survey Data Release, http://dx.doi.org/10.5066/F7JH3J83.
R Core Team, 2018, R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL https://www.R-project.org/.
Usage rights: Although these data have been used by the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior, no warranty expressed or implied is made by the U.S. Geological Survey as to the accuracy of the data and related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by the U.S. Geological Survey in the use of this data, software, or related materials. Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
Click on title to download individual files attached to this item.
TNEflows_meta.xml Original FGDC Metadata
View
168.66 KB
application/fgdc+xml
siteInfo.txt “site information”
16.67 KB
text/plain
SFC.zip “results files”
1.23 MB
application/zip
Richness.zip “results files”
1.48 MB
application/zip
SumThresholds.zip “results files”
8.5 KB
application/zip
Thresholds.zip “results files”
38.52 KB
application/zip
INPUT.zip “model scripts and input files”
32.11 KB
application/zip
README.pdf
130.04 KB
application/pdf
Revisions_2_14_2020.pdf
151.26 KB
application/pdf
Related External Resources
Type: Related Primary Publication
Driver, L.J.; Cartwright, J.M.; Knight, R.R.; Wolfe, W.J. Species-Richness Responses to Water-Withdrawal Scenarios and Minimum Flow Levels: Evaluating Presumptive Standards in the Tennessee and Cumberland River Basins. Water 2020, 12, 1334
Minor changes to the title, citation, and attached files of this data release were made on 2/14/2020 by Lucas J Driver. See the attached file 'Revisions_2_14_2020.pdf' for details.
