Helping assess river landscapes.
Water allocation decisions need to be informed by well-founded considerations of human perceptions. It is important to understand what particular attributes of a river are affected by changes in flow regimes, how people perceive these changes, and what levels of water allocation they consider as appropriate.
Boffa Miskell was asked by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) to address the issue of river flow perceptions and landscape as part of a Foundation for Research Science and Technology-funded research programme called the ‘Water Allocation and Protection of Instream Values’.
The findings of this research project have informed the Riverscape and Flow Assessment Guidelines, prepared by the Boffa Miskell project team. The purpose of these guidelines is to assist those investigating the perceptual aspects of environmental flows in regulated rivers, and the establishment of flows that sustain instream values. The guidelines address ‘landscape’ issues raised by flow rate, flow duration and other flow regime changes. They are designed to further the understanding of managers, decision makers and landscape specialists involved in water allocation investigations.
