Call for papers: The Science, Economics and Policy of Environment Flows

A special issue of International Journal of Water

The conflict between extractive and environmental use of surface water is growing and becoming a pressing issue as climate change threatens. This special issue will explore the science of establishing suitable flow regimes and the political, social and economic policy issues associated with restoring flow regimes in catchments fully allocated to extractive use.

This special issue is devoted to questions such as:

• The where, when and in what quantity are environmental flows required?
• How should water be acquired when it is fully allocated to extractive use?
• Should environmental entitlements be established and made tradeable?
• What institutions are necessary to ensure effective environmental flow management?
• How should the conflict between environmental and extractive demand be managed?

Answering this range of questions requires the skills of many disciplines. As such, this special issue is open to a large range of disciplines – papers from catchment hydrology and riverine ecology through to resource/ecological economics, law and policy are welcome. The notion is to present a set of papers that cover the range of issues associated with restoring environmental flows.

Topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Environmental flow modelling: determining environmental flow regimes
• Modelling the policy implications of environmental flows
• Environmental and extractive water values, prices and costs
• Environmental flows and water policy
• Environmental flows and water markets
• Environmental water rights
• Indigenous water rights and the environment
• Conflict between extractive and environmental water use
• The role of authorities and other groups in restoring environmental flows
• The politics of environmental flows

Important Date
Deadline for submission: November 30th, 2010