Drought and Aquatic Ecosystems Effects and Responses

by Lake, P. Sam

• ISBN13: 9781405185608
• ISBN10: 1405185600
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-22
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Droughts are a major hazard to both natural and human-dominated environments and those, especially of long duration and high intensity, can be highly damaging and leave long-lasting effects. This book describes the climatic conditions that give rise to droughts, and their various forms and chief attributes. Past droughts are described including those that had severe impacts on human societies. As a disturbance, droughts can be thought of as "ramps" in that they usually build slowly and take time to become evident. As precipitation is reduced, flows from catchments into aquatic systems decline. As water declines in water bodies, ecological processes are changed and the biota can be drastically reduced, though species and populations may survive by using refuges. Recovery from drought varies in both rates and in degrees of completeness and may be a function of both refuge availability and connectivity. For the first time, this book reviews the available rather scattered literature on the impacts of drought on the flora, fauna and ecological processes of aquatic ecosystems ranging from small ponds to lakes and from streams to estuaries. The effects of drought on the biota of standing waters and flowing waters and of temporary waters and perennial systems are described and compared. In addition, the ways in which human activity can exacerbate droughts are outlined. In many parts of the world especially in the mid latitudes, global warming may result in increases in the duration and intensity of droughts. Drought and Aquatic Ecosystems is essential reading for freshwater ecologists, water resource managers and advanced students.

Author Biography

Philip "Sam" Lake is an Emeritus Professor in the School or Biological Sciences and a Fellow of the Australian Centre for Biodiversity at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Much of his research has focused on the effects that both natural disturbances (e.g. floods droughts) and human-generated ones (e.g.pollution, catchment land-use change) have on the biota of freshwaters systems. Reccntly he has also been investigating the ecological processes involved in the restoration ot degraded flowing waters.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Introduction: the nature of droughts	p. 1
The social and economic damage of drought	p. 3
Major characteristics of drought	p. 6
The formation of droughts	p. 7
El Ni?o Southern Oscillation (Enso) and drought	p. 9
Other important oscillations creating drought	p. 15
Drought in Australia	p. 18
Types of drought and their assessment	p. 20
Drought monitoring and indices	p. 25
Meteorological drought	p. 25
Hydrological drought	p. 28
The perturbation of hydrological drought	p. 35
Refuges and drought	p. 41
Traits and adaptations to drought	p. 42
The nature of studies on drought in aquatic ecosystems	p. 43
Droughts of the past: dendrochronology and lake sediments	p. 46
Indicators of past droughts	p. 47
Dendrochronology	p. 48
Indicators from lakes: tree stumps and sediments	p. 49
Impacts of past drought on lakes	p. 55
Droughts of the Holocene	p. 57
Early and mid-Holocene droughts	p. 57
Late Holocene droughts	p. 59
Water bodies, catchments and the abiotic effects of drought	p. 68
Water body types	p. 68
Aquatic ecosystems, their catchments and drought	p. 70
Drought and effects on catchments	p. 71
Riparian zones and drought	p. 73
Sequence of changes in water bodies with drying	p. 76
Changes in water quality with drought in lentic systems	p. 81
Drought in connected lakes	p. 85
Drought and water quality in flowing waters	p. 87
Drought and benthic sediments	p. 92
The breaking of drought-re-wetting and the return of flows	p. 93
Concluding remarks	p. 97
The next chapters	p. 98
Drought and temporary waters	p. 100
Drought and the biota of temporary waters	p. 101
Algae	p. 101
Vascular plants	p. 103
Fauna of temporary standing waters and drought	p. 107
Fish of temporary lentic waters	p. 107
Invertebrates	p. 109
Invertebrates in regional standing water bodies of differing hydroperiods	p. 112
Insights from experimental studies of drought in temporary waters	p. 117
The biota of temporary streams and drought	p. 120
Drying in desert streams	p. 121
Mediterranean streams	p. 121
Dryland streams	p. 127
Drying and recovery in temporary wetlands and streams	p. 130
Conclusions	p. 132
Drought, floodplain rivers and wetland complexes	p. 134
Drought and floodplain systems	p. 136
Drought and the biota of floodplain systems	p. 137
Vascular plants	p. 137
Phytoplankton	p. 138
Zooplankton	p. 139
Benthos	p. 140
Floodplain rivers, fish and drought	p. 141
Fish and the mainstem channel	p. 142
Drought and adaptations of floodplain fish	p. 143
Drought, fish assemblages and floodplain rivers	p. 145
Summary	p. 149
Large wetland complexes with seasonal flooding	p. 150
The Florida Everglades	p. 150
Drought and crustaceans of the Everglades	p. 151
Drought and fish of the Everglades	p. 153
Summary	p. 155
Amphibious and terrestrial vertebrates	p. 156
Amphibians	p. 156
Reptiles and mammals	p. 159
Waterbirds	p. 161
Summary	p. 163
Drought and perennial waters: plants and invertebrates	p. 164
Drought and lentic systems	p. 166
Drought in Lake Chilwa	p. 166
Drought in Lake Chad	p. 172
Phytoplankton in lakes	p. 173
Zooplankton	p. 178
Drought, lake acidification and plankton	p. 180
Macrophytes of lentic systems	p. 181
Benthic littoral fauna	p. 184
Drought in perennial lotic systems	p. 186
Benthic algae and macrophytes	p. 186
Stream invertebrates and drought	p. 188
Drought and the benthos of groundwater-dominated streams	p. 189
Drought, invertebrates and precipitation-dependent perennial streams	p. 192
Stream macroinvertebrates, droughts and human activities	p. 202
Drought, invertebrates and streams at a large spatial extent	p. 203
Summary: drought and stream benthos	p. 205
General conclusions	p. 206
Drought and fish of standing and flowing waters	p. 209
Drought and fish of permanent lentic systems	p. 210
Drought and fluvial fish	p. 217
Dealing with the stresses of drought	p. 218
Habitat change and behaviour as drought develops	p. 218
Fish movements and refuges	p. 220
The impacts of drought on lotic fish	p. 222
Tolerance and survival in small streams	p. 222
Fish kills	p. 225
Drying and biotic interactions	p. 227
Impacts of drought on fish populations and assemblages and subsequent recovery	p. 229
Assemblage composition and structure and drought	p. 234
Headwater and intermittent streams	p. 235
Perennial streams	p. 236
Genetics, fluvial fish and drought	p. 239
Summary and conclusions	p. 241
Estuaries and drought	p. 243
Drought and abiotic variables in estuaries	p. 245
Salinity	p. 246
Nutrients and primary production	p. 249
Drought, salinity and estuarine macrophytes	p. 252
Estuarine invertebrates and drought	p. 253
Drought and estuarine fish	p. 256
Drought and changes in faunal biomass and trophic organization	p. 259
Summary	p. 262
Human-induced exacerbation of drought effects on aquatic ecosystems	p. 265
Human activities on catchments and drought	p. 266
Changes in land use and land cover which influence regional climates	p. 266
Local effects on droughts: Accumulation and mobilization of pollutants	p. 269
Groundwater and drought	p. 270
Catchment condition and drought	p. 272
Human-induced exacerbation of drought effects within water bodies	p. 276
Dams and impoundments	p. 276
Water extraction	p. 279
The critical importance of connectivity	p. 280
Habitat availability and refuges	p. 281
Invasive species	p. 282
Climate change and drought	p. 283
Mitigation and adaptation	p. 287
Conclusions	p. 290
Large-scale, long-term ramp disturbances	p. 291
Meteorological, hydrological and groundwater droughts-a sequence in time and severity	p. 291
Recognizing the importance of past droughts	p. 292
Ecological effects of drought	p. 293
Disconnections and variable effects	p. 293
Abiotic and biotic effects	p. 294
Recovery from drought-a neglected field	p. 296
The future: studying drought and human interactions	p. 298
References	p. 300
Index	p. 361
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