The amount of dissolved oxygen in a river is a matter of life or death for the plants and animals living within it, but this oxygen concentration varies drastically from one river to another, depending on their unique temperature, light and flow.
The amount of dissolved oxygen in a river is a matter of life or death for the plants and animals living within it, but this oxygen concentration varies drastically from one river to another, depending on their unique temperature, light and flow. To better understand which factor has the greatest impact on the concentration of dissolved oxygen, researchers at Penn State used a deep learning model to analyze data from hundreds of rivers across the United States.
Oxygen concentration is an important measure of water quality because fish and other aquatic organisms require dissolved oxygen to breathe, according to Wei Zhi, assistant research professor of civil and environmental engineering and first author of the study, recently published in Nature Water.
“Studies have shown that three major factors — flow, temperature and sunlight — influence the amount of dissolved oxygen found in a river or stream,” Zhi said. “We wanted to know, at the U.S. continental scale, which of these competing drivers was dominant.”
Read more at Penn State
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