Environmental water requirements: demand management in an era of water scarcity

Water allocations for the environment and demand management of environmental water in the context of growing water scarcity are examined in this article. The consumptive use of water is increasing with growing populations and wealth, and water scarcity is being further exacerbated by climate change. In the context of conflicting global and national government policy decisions, water availability to sustain environmental values and benefits is threatened. Freshwater conservation proponents are calling for allocation of environmental flows, requiring societies to make value judgements between socio-economic benefits from consumptive water use versus benefits from instream ecosystem services. Because there will always be trade-offs made in situations of water scarcity, and because many water management systems are adopting finer scale and more flexible management approaches, we argue that environmental flows alone will not adequately conserve many key freshwater ecosystem attributes. Building on Lankford (Lankford BA. 2003. Environmental water requirements: a demand management perspective. J Chart Inst Water Environ Manage. 17:19-22), this article argues that an increased emphasis on demand management for water allocations within the environment is required to manage the growing water scarcity and conserve key freshwater ecosystem attributes. This article outlines options for environmental water demand management, arguing that these freshwater conservation methods are required alongside the provision of environmental flows.