Intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams (IRES) are now recognized to support specific freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services and represent approximately half of the global river network, a fraction that is likely to increase in the context of global changes. Despite large research efforts on IRES during the past few decades, there is a need for developing a systemic approach to IRES that considers their hydrological, hydrogeological, hydraulic, ecological, and biogeochemical properties and processes, as well as their interactions with human societies. Thus, we assert that the interdisciplinary approach to ecosystem research promoted by critical zone sciences and socio‐ecology is relevant. These approaches rely on infrastructure—Critical Zone Observatories (CZO) and Long‐Term Socio‐Ecological Research (LTSER) platforms—that are representative of the diversity of IRES (e.g., among climates or types of geology. We illustrate this within the French CZO and LTSER, including their diversity as socio‐ecosystems, and detail human interactions with IRES. These networks are also specialized in the long‐term observations required to detect and measure ecosystem responses of IRES to climate and human forcings despite the delay and buffering effects within ecosystems. The CZO and LTSER platforms also support development of innovative techniques and data analysis methods that can improve characterization of IRES, in particular for monitoring flow regimes, groundwater‐surface water flow, or water biogeochemistry during rewetting. We provide scientific and methodological perspectives for which this interdisciplinary approach and its associated infrastructure would provide relevant and original insights that would help fill knowledge gaps about IRES.
This article is categorized under:
Water and Life > Stresses and Pressures on Ecosystems
Science of Water > Hydrological Processes
Water and Life > Conservation, Management, and Awareness
Sodium-Water Reaction (SWR) is a notorious and complex interaction between two condensed phase reactants. It involves both physical and chemical processes, is fast, exothermic, and can be explosive under specific conditions. The fine-scale processes of SWR, and in particular the runaway mechanism eventually leading to explosive effects, are not yet fully understood. This paper focuses on how SWR runaway is triggered. Experiments investigating the processes of SWR with a high-speed camera are first described. These experiments suggest that sodium vaporization is responsible for provoking runaway. The main experimental observations are discussed and a scenario for SWR runaway is proposed. Finally, a semi-analytical model based on that mechanism is developed. Physical considerations and simplifying assumptions allow reducing the model to a single differential equation in the configuration of current experiments. The results of this model are consistent with experimental observations, and confirm the critical role of sodium vaporization in the onset of SWR runaway.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.