Mike She-ecolab – an Integrated Catchment-scale Eco- Hydrological Modelling Tool

Two of the key objectives of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) are: 1) to protect and enhance the status of aquatic ecosystems (and terrestrial ecosystems and wetlands directly dependent on aquatic ecosystems) and 2) to provide for sufficient supply of good quality surface water and groundwater as needed for sustainable, balanced and equitable water use. These requirements, together with the growing acceptance of the integrated water resource management approaches that treat catchment management holistically, provide a strong motivation to develop integrated hydrological and water quality tools that can address problems related to ecological status and restoration. In particular, managers need to be able to quantify changes in ecosystem status caused by changes in catchment management. A new and powerful eco-hydrological modelling tool has been developed, combining a generic ecological modelling tool (ECO Lab) with a fully integrated catchment modelling tool representing surface water, soil-and groundwater as well as water quality processes. This study is part of the Danish project Riskpoint (http://www.risk-point.dk/) aimed at developing environmental risk assessment tools. The capabilities of this new tool within different components of the hydrological cycle are demonstrated and evaluated using analytical solutions, laboratory and field data. The tool is then used to develop an integrated hydro-ecological model to simulate the flows and temperatures in the Lower Wood River Valley, Idaho, US and relate physical environmental stressors in the catchment to the ecosystem status of Silver Creek. The results presented show that the modelling tool is able to reproduce the temperature dynamics in the Silver Creek ecosystem, which is critical for the fish population. Future work will examine the effect of different management scenarios on the temperature levels and dynamics in this ecosystem.