Floodplain storage of water, nutrients, and sediment is critical to sustaining river ecosystems but has been reduced by human activities.
Streamflow
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Gauging Ungauged River Basins with Smart Remote Sensing
A clever combination of hydrologic modelling and discharge estimates from the Landsat satellite provides good discharge estimates throughout the Missouri river basin.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Thawing Permafrost May Cause Streams to Cool
Permafrost thawing associated with climate warming increases contributions to streamflow by deeper, cooler groundwater flow paths, which may result in lower summer stream temperatures.
Posted inNews
Waterways Change as Cities Grow Nearby
Using multidecadal data sets, researchers have traced how urbanization affects streamflow across the continental United States.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Repeating Famous Hillslope Experiment Provides New Insights
Repeating a famous hillslope experiment after 55 years shows that soil properties can change within several decades and highlights the importance of a leaky boundary for hillslope drainage.
Posted inNews
Are Beavers Nature’s “Little Firefighters”?
It’s about dam time: Beavers are acknowledged for their firefighting skills in five recent blazes.
Posted inNews
Earthquakes Shake Up Groundwater Systems
Increased permeability temporarily boosts water flow.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Restoring Natural Fire Regimes Can Yield More Water Downstream
Research in Yosemite National Park offers a new benchmark for understanding water balance changes in a mountainous basin 4 decades after its natural wildfire regime was reestablished.
Posted inNews
Where Did All the Free-Flowing Rivers Go?
A map of the world’s free-flowing rivers shows a shrinking number can still meander as they please. New plans for hydropower will further constrain flow.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
If Precipitation Extremes Are Increasing, Why Aren’t Floods?
Improving our understanding of the relationship between changes in precipitation and flooding due to rising temperature is a new grand challenge for the scientific community, argue the authors of a recent commentary.