THE HYDROLOGIC REGIME ALTERATIONS OF NATURAL WATERSHEDS IN NEW ENGLAND

As with all ecosystems, rivers, the perfect hydrologic regimes are unique aquatic systems in both physical structure and biological process, where they embrace a distinctive complex interaction of the biota through their environment. Rivers play a major functional role in the global water cycling between the sea, air, and land by renewing a finite supply of freshwater around the world which is in turn substantially sustain all of the ecosystem integrity by protecting the complexity inherent of the native biodiversity of the aquatic, wetland, and riparian ecosystems and therefore, sustaining all life on the earth. Full range of temporal variability in hydrologic regimes is necessary to successful life-cycle completion for abounding aquatic species. Modification of hydrologic conditions participates indirectly in altering the composition, structure, or function of ecosystems through their effects on the physical habitat characteristics and frequently disturbs most of the ecological processes behaviors. As long as in life-history strategies, it will radically change riparian habitats, the most destructive factors pose major threats to aquatic life. The study is carried out in New England by selecting the streamflow gages within regions that are not influenced by human such as reservoir operations, agricultural diversions, and groundwater pumping. The long-term, daily mean discharge records are tested out to find the effects of climate change on the watershed characteristics. These effects appeared as shifting in the maximum and minimum streamflow parameters. The present study goes forward by answering the questions of how can the two parameters relate to each other? How can the changing affect the physical processes behavior of the watersheds at various time scales? Finally, what are the effects of hydrologic regime alteration be related to the status and trends of the biota?