This guest commentary was written by Julie Zimmerman, Jeanette Howard, Jon Rosenfield, and Rene Henery in response to The Final Demise of Unimpaired Flows, guest commentary by Robert Shibatani… As river ecologists that work on environmental flows, we’re often confused by the strong reactions we hear at the mention of unimpaired flows. In general, we do not advocate for, nor have we ever experienced discussions contemplating allocation of 100% of unimpaired flow to the environment in rivers that support other critical, beneficial uses.

Ecologists see little difference between unimpaired and (truly) functional approaches to flow