The
flow regimes of rivers in the Mount Lofty Ranges are intermittent. Coupled with
this, wide spread extraction for agricultural use has altered these flow
regimes, increasing the spatial and temporal extent of disconnection. Water allocation plans seek to balance use
between the environment, social and economic concerns. Determining the amount
of water required by the ecosystem to sustain ecological communities and
processes requires a multidisciplinary approach. Previous methods of
determining environmental water requirements have focussed on geomorphic reach
types coupled with hypothesised responses of key taxa. Our work seeks to further
the current approach by using data driven methods to determine the ecological
effects of water extraction, classify the flow regimes based on hydrological parameters
and model future responses to varying levels of extraction.