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This report addresses river flow management as a vital element to protecting communities from the worst impacts of climate change and its results in changes to sea level, rainfall distributions, flood and drought frequency and intensity, storm severity, or land-ice coverage, and to achieving international goals on poverty reduction. It highlights the service role played by healthy ecosystems in helping water managers meet their goal of maximising the economic and social welfare of all water users in an equitable manner, by maintaining groundwater levels, flood and drought mitigation, and contributions to human livelihoods, nutrition and health.

The report aims to illuminate the role of environmental flows to simultaneously improve human well-being and sustain vital ecosystems, and to meeting the water management challenges we face today and into the future, including adaptation to climate change. It is a joint collaboration between member organisations of The Global Environmental Flows Network (eFlowNet). Other authors include: the Swedish Water House (SWH), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Umeå University, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Conservation International (CI), the UNEP-DHI Center for Water and Environment (UNEP-DHI), and the UNESCO Institute for Water Education (UNESCO-IHE).