title: Potential impacts of climate change on flow regime and fish habitat in mountain rivers of the south-western Balkans.
abstract: The climate change in the Mediterranean area is expected to have significant impacts on the aquatic ecosystems and particular in the mountain rivers and streams that often host important species such as the Salmo farioides, Karaman 1938. These impacts will most possibly affect the habitat availability for various aquatic species resulting to an essential alteration of the water requirements, either for dams or other water abstractions, in order to maintain the essential levels of ecological flow for the rivers. The main scope of this study was to assess potential climate change impacts on the hydrological patterns and typical biota for a south-western Balkan mountain river, the Acheloos. The altered flow regimes under different emission scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were estimated using a hydrological model and based on regional climate simulations over the study area. The Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration (IHA) methodology was then used to assess the potential streamflow alterations in the studied river due to predicted climate change conditions. A fish habitat simulation method integrating univariate habitat suitability curves and hydraulic modeling techniques were used to assess the impacts on the relationships between the aquatic biota and hydrological status utilizing a sentinel species, the West Balkan trout. The most prominent effects of the climate change scenarios depict severe flow reductions that are likely to occur especially during the summer flows, changing the duration and depressing the magnitude of the natural low flow conditions. Weighted Usable Area-flow curves indicated the limitation of suitable habitat for the native trout. Finally, this preliminary application highlighted the potential of science-based hydrological and habitat simulation approaches that are relevant to both biological quality elements (fish) and current EU Water policy to serve as efficient tools for the estimation of possible climate change impacts on the south-western Balkan river ecosystems.
authors.affiliation: Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters, Greece.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Papadaki
authors.affiliation: Department of Natural Resources Management and Agricultural Engineering, Division of Water Resources Management, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece.
authors.forename: Konstantinos
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Soulis
authors.affiliation: Institut d'Investigaciό per a la Gestiό Integrada de Zones Costaneres (IGIC), Universitat Politècnica de València, C/ Paranimf 1, 46730 Grau de Gandia, Valencia, Spain.
authors.forename: Rafael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Muñoz-Mas
authors.affiliation: Institut d'Investigaciό per a la Gestiό Integrada de Zones Costaneres (IGIC), Universitat Politècnica de València, C/ Paranimf 1, 46730 Grau de Gandia, Valencia, Spain.
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Martinez-Capel
authors.affiliation: Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters, Greece.
authors.forename: Stamatis
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zogaris
authors.affiliation: D. Argyropoulos & Associates, Tinou 2, 15562 Cholargos, Greece.
authors.forename: Lazaros
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ntoanidis
authors.affiliation: Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Marine Biological Resources and Inland Waters, Greece. Electronic address: elias@hcmr.gr.
authors.forename: Elias
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dimitriou
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D063368:Balkan Peninsula; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D062070:Hydrology; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D045483:Rivers / Q000737:chemistry; D014337:Trout; D014872:Water Movements
keywords: Habitat series analysis; Hydrological alteration; Physical habitat simulation; West Balkan trout