A recently published MAIA-supported paper looks into the available SEEA EA water flow regulations for ecosystem (ES) accounting in order to define an approach for accounting flood regulation at a local scale, within the case study region of Ogosta river basin in Bulgaria. Developed by a team of leading experts, amongst whom MAIA’s partner Desislava Hristova of the National Institute for Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography, the paper is available in the journal of the Bulgarian Geographical Society. 

The study shows  that  hydrologic modeling  ensures  appropriate data  for  quantification  of  water  balance  parameters  which  can  be used for indicators of flood regulation ES. This confirms the conclusions made in previous studies on the modeling of flood regulation ES.

The results presented seem to deliver a good representation of the prevention flood regulation function. Better estimations of the mitigation function could be achieved by incorporating a hydraulic model that ensures the calculation of the amount of water absorbed

by  floodplains  and  wetlands.  This  would  give  the  opportunity  for  a more precise estimation of ecosystems that have predominantly prevention flood regulation function.

The full paper can be found here.