Many of the world’s largest rivers are experiencing significant changes in their chemical composition as a result of natural and human activity, according to new research.
This is resulting in increased levels of solutes such as calcium, potassium, chloride and bicarbonates flowing through our major river basins and estuaries and ending up in the ocean, scientists say.
Over the space of almost a decade, an international team established a global database of runoff and solute concentration data (some of it spanning more than a century) for almost 150 large rivers.
They included the Colorado and Mississippi (USA), the Amazon (South America), the Congo (Africa), the Rhine (Europe), the Yellow and Yangtse rivers (China), and the Murray (Australia).
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