ORIGINAL ARTICLE An ecosystem service approach to understand conflicts on river flows: local views on the Ter River (Catalonia) Dı ´dac Jorda-Capdevila • Beatriz Rodrı ´guez-Labajos Received: 5 April 2014 / Accepted: 3 December 2014 / Published online: 18 December 2014 Ó Springer Japan 2014 Abstract Claims for a global agenda addressing the need to protect environmental flows are increasing. In the context of frequent conflicts related to unsustainable exploitation of rivers, instream flow policies may result in very different outcomes and involve different beneficiaries. We propose and test an innovative local knowledge-based methodology that uses the ecosystem services approach to disentangle the links within the river-society system. In particular, network ana- lysis is employed to identify potential tradeoffs caused by the river flow management. Our empirical evidence relies on a thorough scrutiny of key stakeholders’ positions in the Ter River basin (Catalonia, Spain). As in other Northern Medi- terranean contexts, multiple weirs interrupt the water flow in the upper course, diverting water for hydropower. Mean- while, in the middle course, the bulk of water flow is trans- ferred to the metropolitan Barcelona contributing to water scarcity in the Lower Ter, where farmers and other users claim against imposed restrictions on access to water flows. Our results point out that (1) in contexts such as the analyzed one, the ‘ecosystem services’ (ES) notion enhances commu- nication among stakeholders; (2) ground-up exercises are essential for identifying river benefits at local scale and characterizing the related ES; and (3) network analysis helps to make explicit tradeoffs between river uses, in which recognition is crucial to understand how conflicts on river flows emerge and how can be managed, (4) management of instream flows should be informed by the complex interac- tion, herein outlined, between hydrological alterations, com- ponents of river ecosystems and the benefits they provide. Keywords Ecosystem services Á Environmental flows Á Rivers Á Stakeholders’ involvement Á Sustainable water management Á Tradeoffs Introduction River flows, understood as the matter flowing within a river (water, but also sediments, nutrients, organic debris and biological propagules), are a key aspect of environmental health. Their management becomes particularly relevant in areas with strong seasonal variability and natural droughts, like the Mediterranean biome. Such areas are menaced by the effects of global change and by a particularly intense competition between water uses too (Vo ¨ro ¨smarty et al. 2010). Prioritizing consumptive—and usually private— uses has produced a threat to rivers in many countries (McCully 1996; Poff et al. 2003; Kuenzer et al. 2012). Hydrological alterations due to water withdrawals and dam management have multiple effects on the ecological status of rivers (Poff et al. 1997) and on the ecosystem services (ES) they provide (Brauman et al. 2007). Notwithstanding, instream flows 1 have become politically relevant and some initiatives have imposed the so-called environmental flow Handled by Osamu Saito, UNU-Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (IAS), Japan. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11625-014-0286-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. D. Jorda-Capdevila (&) Á B. Rodrı ´guez-Labajos Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Universitat Auto `noma de Barcelona, Despatx Z-137, Edifici Z, UAB, Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona, Spain e-mail: dd.joca@gmail.com 1 Instream flows are those river flows that naturally circulate within river channels. There may also be diverted flows to feed out-of-stream uses. Poff et al. (1997) define ‘environmental flow regime’ as the minimum requirement of water instream flows, seasonally variable, to preserve river ecosystems. 123 Sustain Sci (2015) 10:463–477 DOI 10.1007/s11625-014-0286-0