Investigating the sensitivity of river wetted habitat to changes in flow
The relationship between flow and ecological health is an indirect one. Individual species and ecological communities respond to physical variables such as flow velocity, wetted habitat area, depth, and stream power. However, these variables are related to flow and, due to the fact that it is more easily measured, flow has been treated as a variable which can support the determination of ecological status or, for heavily modified water bodies, ecological potential by the UK environment agencies.