A new study in Science by researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and University of Cincinnati has mapped 35 years of river changes on a global scale for the first time.
A new study in Science by researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and University of Cincinnati has mapped 35 years of river changes on a global scale for the first time. The work has revealed that 44% of the largest, downstream rivers saw a decrease in how much water flows through them every year, while 17% of the smallest upstream rivers saw increases. These changes have implications for flooding, ecosystem disruption, hydropower development interference and insufficient freshwater supplies.
Previous attempts to quantify changes in rivers over time have only looked at specific outlet reaches or a rear basin part of a river, explains Dongmei Feng, lead author, assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati and former research assistant professor in the Fluvial@UMass lab run by the paper’s co-author Colin Gleason, Armstrong Professional Development Professor of civil and environmental engineering at UMass Amherst.
“But as we know, rivers are not isolated,” she says. “So even if we are interested in one location, we have to think about how it’s impacted both upstream and downstream. We think about the river system as a whole, organically connected system. The takeaway from this paper is: The rivers respond to factors — climate change or human regulation — differently [and] we provide the finer detail of those responses.”
Read more at University of Massachusetts Amherst
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