7812

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7812
• Author: Many
• Title: Rivers, Studies in the Science, Environmental Policy, and Law of Instream Flow
• USFW Year: 1990
• USFW - Doc Type: Rivers
• Copyright Material: YES

as in the Upper Colorado River Basin, to benefit endangered species, while honoring
state water rights. New institutional procedures, including establishment of trust funds
for managing habitats for endangered species, are being developed. These multi-or-
ganizational efforts have reduced conflicts and led to improved water management in
some local situations. More such cooperative efforts are needed to ensure recovery of
threatened and endangered species, as well as to perpetuate habitats for thriving fish
and wildlife populations-so important in maintaining the economy and quality of life
for people.
In past decades, experiences with instream flow assessment technologies demonstrat-
ed that traditional water allocation systems can be adjusted as required to meet govern-
ments' public trust responsibilities for managing natural resources and to resolve trou-
blesome water issues in the best public interest. Some resource management agencies
have started to provide prescriptions in routine planning and operations to accom-
modate instream values and uses. However, most federal and state agencies are at an
early stage in designing and refining procedures to ensure instream flows and their
inherent values and uses.
The need to improve resource management agency responses is emphasized by in-
creasing demands for instream flows for fish and wildlife habitats, outdoor recreation,
navigation, irrigation, water quality protection, and restoration, to name a few. Better
information is essential in planning proposed water developments, licensing hydro-
electric plants, formulating stipulations for permits to dredge and fill the nation's waters,
and a host of other activities. The breadth of these activities illustrates that instream
flow concerns, assessments, and management prescriptions will grow in importance to
decision-makers, resource managers, researchers, and the general public.
This new journal, Rivers, holds great promise for accelerating needed management
of rivers by integrating information from a variety of disciplines and providing a
continuing flow of information required to register further progress in assessing, al-
locating and managing instream uses of water. The journal's central focus on findings
from research, policy analyses and practical management experiences should help ac-
celerate the generation and use of needed information and identify individuals with
expertise on streamflows. Such exchanges should help perpetuate riverine corridor
values important to the nation's ecological, economic, and social well-being.
2 Rivers • Volume 1, Number 1 January 1990