Fluvial Geomorphology and River Management

Giano, Salvatore Ivo

doi:10.3390/w13111608

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…And while individual land use characteristics were not particularly important in isolation, machine learning models consistently ranked this group as a whole to be as important as catchment area for predicting variability in flow at all timescales longer than a few months. We speculate that precipitation, temperature, and catchment size may regulate near-universal hydrological processes that are responsible for the highly compressible components of streamflow regime (those captured by the 7 PCA metrics) (Giano, 2021;N. LeRoy Poff et al, 1997), and that the more complicated ecohydrological interactions introduced by the myriad possible land use regimes and geological factors are responsible for streamflow properties that were harder to identify with PCA analysis (Bladon et al, 2014;Manning et al, 2022;Tague & Grant, 2004;Wu et al, 2021)-though we note that land use is likely correlated with climatic and geological factors.…”

Section: Streamflowmentioning

confidence: 88%

The Music of Rivers: The Mathematics of Waves Reveals Global Structure and Drivers of Streamflow Regime

Brown

Fulerton

Kopp³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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River flows change on timescales ranging from minutes to millennia. These variations influence fundamental functions of ecosystems, including biogeochemical fluxes, aquatic habitat, and human society. Efforts to describe temporal variation in river flow—i.e., flow regime—have resulted in hundreds of unique descriptors, complicating interpretation and identification of global drivers of flow dynamics. Here, we used a cross-disciplinary analytical approach to investigate two related questions: 1. Is there a low-dimensional structure that can be used to simplify descriptions of streamflow regime? 2. What catchment characteristics are most associated with that structure? Using a global database of daily river discharge from 1988-2016 for 3,120 stations, we calculated 189 traditional flow metrics, which we compared to the results of a wavelet analysis. Both quantification techniques independently revealed that streamflow data contain substantial low-dimensional structure that correlates closely with a small number of catchment characteristics. This structure provides a framework for understanding fundamental controls of river flow variability across multiple timescales. Climate was the most important variable across all timescales, especially those lasting several weeks, and likely contributes as much as dams in controlling flow regime. Catchment area was critical for timescales lasting several days, as was human impact for timescales lasting several years. In addition, both methods suggested that streamflow data also contain high-dimensional structure that is harder to predict from a small number of catchment characteristics (i.e. is dependent on land use, soil structure, etc.), and which accounts for the difficulty of producing simple hydrological models that generalize well.

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Section: Streamflowmentioning

confidence: 88%

The Music of Rivers: The Mathematics of Waves Reveals Global Structure and Drivers of Streamflow Regime

Brown

Fulerton

Kopp³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…And while individual land use characteristics were not particularly important in isolation, machine learning models consistently ranked this group to be as important as catchment area for predicting variability in flow at all timescales longer than a few months (Figure 10). We speculate that precipitation, temperature, and catchment size may regulate near‐universal hydrological processes that are responsible for the highly compressible components of streamflow regime (those captured by the seven PCA metrics; Giano, 2021; Poff et al., 1997), and that the more complicated ecohydrological interactions introduced by the myriad possible land use regimes and geological factors are responsible for the streamflow properties that were harder to identify with PCA analysis (Bladon et al., 2014; Manning et al., 2022; Tague & Grant, 2004; S. Wu et al., 2021), corroborating the need for a large number of non‐generalizable parameters that frequently occurs in modeling scenarios (Horton et al., 2022). Said differently, our results imply that a simple, emergent physics may exist at the catchment scale, where a handful of mean catchment properties accurately predict flashiness, timing, and volume of flow at the basin's outlet, to the extent that biological interactions remain simple (Sposito, 2017; Zhou et al., 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Music of Rivers: The Mathematics of Waves Reveals Global Structure and Drivers of Streamflow Regime

Brown

Fulerton

Kopp³

et al. 2023

Water Resources Research

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River flow drives the structure and function of aquatic systems on sub-daily to decadal timescales, and sculpts landscapes on geological timescales from months to millennia (Fisher et al., 1998;Pinay et al., 2018;Tucker & Hancock, 2010). For people, variability in river flow regulates access to freshwater, with extreme flow events such as floods and droughts imposing immense personal and societal costs (

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“…Given the global importance of ecosystem services provided by river systems worldwide (Petsch et al, 2023), there is an urgent need to better understand the hydromorphological quality of rivers and their behavior in response to various natural and anthropogenic disturbances, especially in areas of the world where fluvial systems have been traditionally less investigated (Andreoli et al, 2012; Giano, 2021). River dynamics are highly non‐linear, making it very challenging to disentangle the relative role of several sources of impacts on their morphological response.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synergistic process interactions and morphological change in a river reach subject to multiple disturbances, the Laja River, Chile

Barahona,

Alcayaga,

Caamaño

et al. 2024

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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This work studies the multiple sources of impacts and disturbances in the Laja River (Central Chile) and evaluates the changes in water and sediment flows and planimetric geomorphic changes.The disturbances sources correspond to hydroelectric plants, water withdrawals for irrigation and the sustained decrease trend in rainfall in the basin. The changes in the plan‐view shape of the river reach were quantified using remote sensing techniques, through a supervised classification of Landsat 5 TM and 8 OLI satellite images, identified Water (W), Islands and Riverine Vegetation (IRV) and Bars and Banks Without Vegetation (BBWV), obtained a Kappa index>0,83 for a period of 15 years (2006–2021).Compared with historical records, the period of analysis shows a decrease in annual rainfall by 17.5%. In addition, water withdrawals for irrigation have contributed to a 64% decrease in monthly stream discharge during the dry season. As a consequence of the decrease in annual rainfall and water withdrawals for irrigation, the sediment transport capacity has also decreased by 10.5%.The changes in morphological driving variables (stream flows and sediment transport regimes) have manifested themselves in morphological changes, where it was possible to establish that a change in the channel form occurred in the last 15 years, going from a river with a single channel to a braided one. An important vegetation establishment has accompanied this morphological change on both riverbanks and the central bars. The colonizing vegetation corresponds to fast‐growing non‐native species (Salix spp., Populus spp. and Alnus spp). A stabilization of the channel form is expected, consolidating itself as a braided section with alternating vegetated bars.

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Fluvial Geomorphology and River Management

Abstract: This Special Issue deals with the role of fluvial geomorphology in landscape evolution and the impact of human activities on fluvial systems, which require river restoration and management [...]

Cited by 4 publications

References 15 publications

The Music of Rivers: The Mathematics of Waves Reveals Global Structure and Drivers of Streamflow Regime

The Music of Rivers: The Mathematics of Waves Reveals Global Structure and Drivers of Streamflow Regime

The Music of Rivers: The Mathematics of Waves Reveals Global Structure and Drivers of Streamflow Regime

Synergistic process interactions and morphological change in a river reach subject to multiple disturbances, the Laja River, Chile

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