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GLPF
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Interests > Natural
Flow Regimes
Restoring
Natural Flow Regimes
Based on the results of an experts'
roundtable (40KB PDF file) on the topic, the Fund has launched a significant
initiative to restore natural flow regimes to the waters of
the Great Lakes basin.
The magnitude, timing, duration, frequency and rates of water
movements within a watershed make up its flow regime. These
factors control how materials, energy and biota interact in
stream, river and lake environments. Physical modifications,
such as dams and levies and changes in land use, have significantly
altered the natural flow regimes of the Great Lakes waterways.
Water, biota, and materials enter and move through the waterways
at different times, at different rates, and in different amounts
than they have historically. The end result has been biological
degradation of the Great Lakes ecosystem.
While it may be impossible and undesirable to return the Great
Lakes basin to pre-settlement condition, restoring the natural
flow regime to rivers and coastal environments - the biological
"engines" of the Great Lakes ecosystem - can achieve
significant ecological gains. More promising, those incremental
gains made in key places could be truly synergistic, collectively
yielding results greater than the sum of individual actions.
The Fund's initiative on natural flow regimes has three objectives:
- To identify, demonstrate, and refine the most promising
restoration strategies, with a focus on dam operation, run-off
regimes, wetland restoration and shoreline processes.
- To build a suite of tools to identify candidate restoration
projects, measure impacts and assess alternatives.
- To support a framework for water resource use decisions
that allows improvements to the Great Lakes ecosystem to
be considered as a part of project design.
The Fund welcomes preproposals that test flow restoration
strategies. Among the Fund's interests are strategies that:
- Use flow restoration to meet water quality standards for
non-conservative pollutants
- Improve groundwater recharge to benefit aquatic communities
in Great Lakes tributaries and surface waters
- Inventory natural flow regime restoration opportunities
and rank them for likely ecological benefit, cost effectiveness,
implementation ease, or other relevant factors
- Simultaneously achieve fishery goals and water quality
goals using natural flow regime restoration strategies
- Test and disseminate management practices that achieve
water quality goals by restoring hydrologic regimes on farmlands
and working forests
- Incorporate natural flow regime restoration strategies
in water development projects to benefit the ecosystem.
See Application Process
to review our general
funding guidelines and instructions for preproposal
submission, including the required cover sheet.
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