River regulation following the construction of dams has affected the hydrology, water quality, and biology of watercourses across the globe. The term “environmental flows” has been used to describe measures that can be employed to return some lost elements of the natural flow regime. Their introduction has been suggested as a way to mitigate the impacts of river regulation throughout the world, but understanding of the effects of artificial high flows on water quality and biota is limited for many different river types. We report a field study that manipulated compensation flows from reservoirs in the Pennine uplands of northern England and measured changes in water quality and benthic macroinvertebrates using a before‐after‐control‐impact approach. These resulted in minor short‐term changes in water quality, but there was no evidence of immediate (within 48 hr) responses by the macroinvertebrate community to individual flow releases. However, a shift in macroinvertebrate community composition was found after multiple releases, characterized by reductions in Amphinemura sulcicollis (Plecoptera) and Baetis rhodani (Ephemeroptera) and changes in the density of all Diptera. The introduction of short‐term flow pulses in flashy regulated river systems is unlikely to yield significant changes in water quality and biota. Nevertheless, cumulative rather than single environmental flow events show promise for mitigating some of the impacts of river regulation. More widely, our findings indicate that environmental flow releases from reservoirs may have to go beyond occasional experimental high flow releases if these rivers are to more closely mimic unregulated river systems.

中文翻译：

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实验性水流释放对高地调节河流中水质和大型无脊椎动物群落组成的影响有限

大坝建设后的河流调节影响了全球的水文，水质和河道生物学。“环境流量”一词已被用来描述可用于返回自然流量状态中某些损失要素的措施。已经提出将其引入作为减轻全世界河流管制影响的一种方法，但是对于许多不同类型的河流，对人工高流量对水质和生物群系影响的了解有限。我们报告了一项现场研究，该研究操纵了英格兰北部Pennine高地水库的补偿流，并采用了“控制后影响”方法来测量水质和底栖大型无脊椎动物的变化。这些导致短期水质发生变化，但是没有证据表明大型无脊椎动物群落对个体的血流释放有立即的反应（在48小时之内）。然而，多次释放后发现大型无脊椎动物群落组成发生了变化，其特征在于Amphinemura sulcicollis（襀翅目）和Baetis rhodani（蜉蝣目），并在所有的双翅目的密度变化。在浮水管制的河流系统中引入短期流量脉冲不太可能导致水质和生物区系发生重大变化。然而，累积而不是单一的环境流量事件显示了减轻河流管制的某些影响的希望。从更广泛的角度来看，我们的发现表明，如果这些河流要更紧密地模仿不受管制的河流系统，那么水库释放的环境流量可能要超出偶尔的实验性高流量释放。