Challenges to Implementing an Environmental Flow Regime in the Luvuvhu River Catchment, South Africa.

Rivers are now facing increasing pressure and demand to provide water directly for drinking, farming and supporting industries as a result of rapidly growing global human population. Globally, the most common practice for catchment managers is to limit water abstraction and changes to stream flow by setting environmental flow standards that guard and maintain the natural ecosystem characteristics. Since the development of the environmental flow concept and methods in South Africa, very few studies have assessed the institutional constraints towards environmental flow implementation.