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dam-l VOICE OF EXPERIENCE

Agonizing Watershed-Coastal Seas Ecosystems: Critical Review of
Alternatives. 8888 Lauderdale Ct., Unit 216f, Huntington Beach, CA 92646,
U.S.A.

Rozengurt, M.A., Ph.D., P.H.


Cumulative effects of the impoundment and inland water withdrawals of
millions of acre feet have resulted in chronic depletion of the spring
runoff ranging from -35 to -90%, as opposed to its natural ±25 to 30% of
the perennial norm (average over 55 years), accompanied by the loss of
millions of tons of oxygen, organic and inorganic matter and sediments
vital to the survival of coastal ecosystems the world over.  It had taken
10 to 15 years to have the functioning of river-coastal ecosystems
continuum impeded due to an anomalous predominance of subnormal wetness
regardless of watershed runoffs.  This has triggered accumulation of
entropy whose visible indicators are: sluggish circulation, increased
detention time, the lack of self-purification of water bodies from
natural and man-induced pollutants, salt intrusion into the delta,
hypoxia and anoxia, eutrophication, and a precipitous decline of
commercial and recreational catches.  In short, man's perceived needs
have produced the new, artificial ecosystems on a global scale, namely:
"the impounded river-lakes, or river-delta-estuary-coastal seas." 
	Three major failures have exacerbated the detrimental effects of
excessive impoundment and perennial losses of water, namely: (1)
statistics of impaired (deterministic) runoff has been analyzed by the
mistaken use of methods of stochastic hydrology; (2) accordingly,
modeling and prediction of water and salt balance of modified ecosystems
have not been adequately performed; and (3) the Laws of Thermodynamics
have been ignored as well as the scales of ecological tolerance and
limitations of ecosystems beyond which entropy tends to reach measurable
maximum. This, in turn, has accelerated the despoliation of habitats in
coastal seas and lakes (example: Mediterranean Basin, west Pacific, north
and central Atlantic, etc.).




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