Abstract
Sustainable development supports watershed processes and functions. To aid the sustainable development of the western Balkans’ transboundary river and lake basins, the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) adapted the EPA’s Index of Watershed Integrity (IWI) following the devasting 2014 floods in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia. The IWI evaluates six watershed functions based on a suite of anthropogenic stressors (e.g., impervious surfaces, reservoirs). A key feature of the IWI is its ability to accumulate the impact of upstream activities of any specific location in a river network. A novel feature of the IWI, compared with other watershed assessment tools, is its capacity to provide actionable information at the local scale. IWI scores—ranging from 0 (low integrity) to 1 (high integrity)—calculated for the 1084 catchments of the study area indicated highest integrity in the Alpine geographic region (mean = 0.55, standard deviation (SD) = 0.11) and intermediate to lowest integrity within the Mediterranean (mean = 0.49, SD = 0.12) and Continental (mean = 0.40, SD = 0.10) geographic regions. The IWI results are presented hierarchically for data analysts (stressor, functional component, Index of Catchment Integrity and IWI), ecologists (stream/catchment, watershed, basin), and managers (local, national, international). We provide real-world examples for managers, and suggestions for improving the assessment.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Regional Environmental Center of Central and Eastern Europe, public and private organizations, and the following communities: Kukes, Peshkopia, and Shkoder in Albania; Foča, Goražde, and Novo Goražde in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Gjakova, Istog, and Rahovec in Kosovo; Debar, Debarca, and Ohrid in North Macedonia; Berane, Bijelo Polje, and Mojkovac in Montenegro; Bogatič, Ljubovija, and Mali Zvornik in Serbia for collaborating with us on the CRESSIDA project. We also thank Anne Kuhn, Jose Zambrana, and James Markwiese for their helpful reviews of this paper.
Funding
The information in this document has been funded entirely by the US Environmental Protection Agency, in part by an appointment to the Internship/Research Participation Program at the Office of Research and Development, USEPA, administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education through an interagency agreement between the US Department of Energy and EPA. The views expressed in this journal article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the USEPA. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.
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Aho, K.B., Flotemersch, J.E., Leibowitz, S.G. et al. Adapting the Index of Watershed Integrity for Watershed Managers in the Western Balkans Region. Environmental Management 65, 602–617 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01280-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01280-x