Relative Bias of Several Fisheries Instream Flow Methods
- 1 October 1984
- journal article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in North American Journal of Fisheries Management
- Vol. 4 (4B) , 531-539
- https://doi.org/10.1577/1548-8659(1984)4<531:rbosfi>2.0.co;2
Abstract
Four general categories of instream flow methods were evaluated to determine their biases relative to each other. The categories included (1) the Tennant method, (2) wetted perimeter curves, (3) habitat retention models, and (4) physical habitat simulation (PHABSIM) models. The Tennant method (30% of average flow) was one of the least biased methods, but it does not include biological data and is incapable of identifying trade-offs. No wetted perimeter methods were significantly unbiased, and methods relying on subjective identification of inflection points were biased upwards. Two habitat retention methods were significantly unbiased. These methods included (1) the mean recommendation of all riffles in a study reach where all three criteria are met, and (2) the recommendation for the single most critical riffle in a study reach where two of the three criteria are met. No PHABSIM models were unbiased. The IFG-4 model was biased upwards for small streams and low for large streams.Keywords
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