Pool Quality Index: New Method to Define Minimum Flow Requirements of High-Gradient, Low-Order Streams

High-gradient (>1%), low-order streams, characterized by hydraulically nonuniform and heterogeneous channels, represent a problem for the most widely employed habitat-based in-stream flow methods (IFIM-PHABSIM). In a nonuniform high gradient and turbulent channel, as low-order streams usually are, the classical 1D hydraulic modeling, ordinarily employed by in-stream flow models to simulate the changes in fish habitat with the flow, could be questionable, if not completely inapplicable. Channel morphology in fact plays a major role in association with hydraulics in determining the abiotic environments (biotopes) in which aquatic communities live. Particularly, in low-order river systems, different channel form features shape the biological community that can be hosted in a certain biotope. For this reason, the link between morphology and discharge is important when evaluating possible impacts of flow reduction on aquatic organisms. To represent the relationship between hydraulics and channel morphology quantitatively, a hydraulic diversity concept has been adopted. Studies from the literature have revealed that, in a regulated river, a decrease of the environmental variability including hydraulic diversity quite often resulted in a downstream decrease of the macro-invertebrate diversity, which can consequently affect fish biomass. These considerations create the ground for a hydraulic diversity-discharge–based in-stream flow method with the aim to promote high community diversity in a low-order regulated stream. A statistic ordination technique (correspondence analysis) applied to 370 hydraulic sections helped to identify four main morphological units (pools, deep pools, and slow and fast riffles) in terms of hydraulic diversity. In each morphological unit, the hydraulic diversity-discharge relationship was investigated and modeled by means of best-fit regression curves. Combining the hydraulic diversity-discharge curves from different morphological units (pools and riffles), a simplified model of the stream pool quality index (PQI)] was obtained. This model has been applied to make recommendations for the minimum flow requirements in six low-order river sites. PQI recommendations were consistent with hydrology and other hydrology-based in-stream flow methodologies. Finally, a multiple regression model indicated that in 12 low-order stream sites a good deal of the variability of macro-invertebrate diversity is explained by the availability of hydraulic environments modeled by means of PQI curves. In conclusion, given the encouraging cues about the ecological meaning of PQI and the possibility to overcome difficulties typically encountered by other methods in the low-order river modeling, PQI can be considered a valid alternative for assessing the in-stream flow needs of low-order streams.