 The study aimed to quantify environmental flow requirements, EFRs, for freshwater ecosystems, which is necessary to assess water needs for food production and other human activities. Five methods were compared with 11 case studies of locally assessed EFRs. The results showed that on average, 37% of annual discharge was required to sustain EFRs, with more water needed during low-flow periods. The test man and VMF methods showed the highest correlation with locally calculated EFRs, and the main difference between them is that the test man method allocates all water to EFRs in low-flow periods while the VMF method allocates 60% of the flow. The global applicability of the five methods was tested using a hydrological model, and variable flow regimes had lower EFRs than stable tropical regimes. This article was authored by A.V. Pastor, F. Ludwig, H. Beemans, and others.