Author(s): Marie-Pierre Gosselin; Mauro Carolli; Luiz Da Silva; Daniel Hayes; Martin Schletterer; Steffen Schweizer; Dana Mccosey

Linked Author(s): Marie-Pierre Gosselin, Mauro Carolli, Luiz G Martins da Silva, Daniel Hayes

Keywords: Environmental flows; IEA Hydro; Hydropower mitigation

Abstract: Despite decades of research and over 300 established calculation methods, the implementation of environmental flows (e-flows) remains insufficient. As part of the International Energy Agency’s Hydro Task 19 “Hydropower and Fish 2.0) a sub-task group was established to foster multidisciplinary collaboration between research, management, industry, and government on the topic of e-flows. This paper describes key insights from discussions within Task 19 and from an expert workshop held prior to the 2025 Sustainability in Hydropower conference in Vienna. Discussions focused on key challenges to e-flow implementation with an attempt to identify suitable solutions to these challenges. This paper also evaluates these findings against the 2018 Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on environmental flows, offering a more European perspective to bridge current gaps and guide e-flow governance over the next decade.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.64697/iahr.proc.ise2026.abs.347

Year: 2026