Study examining how to use flow-capture BMPs to improve San Juan Creek flow patterns

SCCWRP and its partners have launched a study examining how to implement flow-capture BMPs (best management practices) in San Juan Creek in Orange County to restore more natural flow patterns to the watershed. 

The study, launched in April, will examine a range of potential management strategies for eliminating unnatural dry-weather flows and improving flow regimes.

The project will support the area’s water-quality improvement plan, as well as serve as a demonstration project for the California Environmental Flows Framework, a best-practices statewide approach for setting stream environmental flow targets that optimally protect watershed health. Development of the framework is ongoing.

Researchers will document flow-ecology relationships in San Juan Creek to illuminate which flow characteristics are necessary to support healthy biological communities and, ultimately, to inform where to place flow-capture BMPs.