The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the New Jersey Department of Enviromental Protection, undertook a project to identify or develop a methodology for establishing environmental-flow standards for regulatory and planning purposes that will sustain stream communities in New Jersey. This project was called the Ecological Flow Goals (EFG) project. This report: (1) Describes the initial goal of the EFG project and the approach taken to help achieve that goal; (2) Compares some established environmental flow methods, reviews important stream ecosystem concepts, and examines the critical hydrologic research that represents the framework for the environmental flow process presented herein; (3) Describes the development of a new environmental flow assessment process-the Hydroecological Integrity Assessment Process (HIP). Application of the HIP includes a hydrologic classification of streams in New Jersey, and the development of software tools for classifying unclassified streams (the New Jersey Stream Classification Tool (NJSCT)) and for establishing a baseline (reference) time period, comparing and contrasting past and proposed streamflow alterations, and providing options for setting environmental-flow standards at the reach scale (the New Jersey Hydrologic Assessment Tool (NJHAT)); and (4) Provides example management applications using the NJSCT and the NJHAT for an analysis of land-use changes that are known to alter streamflow, and a series of scenarios of direct surface-water withdrawals from an unregulated stream.
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Kennen et al. (2007) studied this question.