Advancing our predictive understanding of river corridor exchange

Adam S. Ward*, Aaron I. Packman

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

55 Scopus citations

Abstract

Despite decades of research, we lack an accurate framework to predict and manage hydrologic exchange in the river corridor and the associated ecosystem services and functions at the scales of stream reaches and entire networks. While many individual studies have been conducted to investigate specific mechanisms, they have not been synthesized to account for heterogeneity in space, nonstationarity, and multiscale feedbacks that typify the river corridor. As a result, contradictory predictions of exchange flux, geometry, and timescale are prevalent in the literature. We attribute these contradictions to (a) failure to account for multiscale feedbacks and (b) uncertainty in the information content of common measurement methods. Here, we apply the concept of interacting multiscale spatial and time-variable domains to the river corridor to demonstrate why more complete multiscale characterization is necessary to achieve predictive understanding. Next, we highlight uncertainties and inconsistencies in measurement methods which may obfuscate our understanding of river corridor exchange. Finally, we briefly outline four necessary advances to achieve predictive understanding of river corridor exchange: standardization of metadata, critical evaluation of the information content and support volumes for measurement techniques, multiscale model-data integration, and advancing theoretical models of river corridor exchange. This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Hydrological Processes Water and Life > Nature of Freshwater Ecosystems Science of Water > Methods.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article numbere1327
JournalWiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water
Volume6
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2019

Funding

Biological and Environmental Research, Grant/ Award Number: DE-SC0019377; Division of Earth Sciences, Grant/Award Number: 1331906134428016522931734300; Division of Environmental Biology, Grant/Award Number: 1754389; H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovations Staff Exchange, Grant/ Award Number: Smart high-frequency environmental sensor networks; Leverhulme Trust, Institute for Advanced Studies. Ward's effort was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grants EAR 1331906, EAR 1652293, DEB 1754389 and by Department of Energy Award DE-SC0019377. Packman was supported by EAR 1734300 and 1344280. Both Ward and Packman also received support from The Leverhulme Trust through the project “Where rivers, groundwater and disciplines meet: A hyporheic research network” with additional support from the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovations Staff Exchange project “Smart high-frequency environmental sensor networks for quantifying nonlinear hydrological process dynamics across spatial scales”, and the Institute for Advanced Studies. Finally, the authors thank Dr C. Luce for insightful comments that improved the quality and focus of this manuscript.

Keywords

  • hyporheic
  • river corridor
  • river network

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Oceanography
  • Ecology
  • Aquatic Science
  • Water Science and Technology
  • Ocean Engineering
  • Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

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