Climate variation and human activities are commonly recognized as two major factors affecting basin hydrology. However, quantifying their individual effect on runoff is challenging. In this study, long-term (1960–2009) river discharge and weather data in the Songhua River Basin (SRB, 556,800 km2), Northeast China, were gathered to separate the impacts of climate variation and human activities o...

In this study, in order to determine the efficiency of estimating annual water pollution loads from remote-sensed land cover classification and ground-observed hydrological data, an empirical model was investigated. Remote sensing data imagery from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer were applied to an 11 year (1994–2004) water quality...

Using remote sensing images, we provided the first complete picture of freshwater bodies in mainland China. We mapped 89,700 reservoirs, covering about 26,870 km(2) and approximately 185,000 lakes with a surface area of about 82,232 km(2). Despite relatively small surface area, the total estimated storage capacity of reservoirs (794 km(3)) is triple that of lakes (268 km(3)). Further analysis i...

Giant Amazon river turtles, Podocnemis expansa, are indigenous to the Amazon, Orinoco, and Essequibo River basins, and are distributed across nearly the entire width of the South American continent. Although once common, their large size, high fecundity, and gregarious nesting, made P. expansa especially vulnerable to over-harvesting for eggs and meat. Populations have been severely reduced or ...

We assessed and compared abiotic preferences of aquatic macroinvertebrates in three river basins located in Ecuador, Ethiopia and Vietnam. Upon using logistic regression models we analyzed the relationship between the probability of occurrence of five macroinvertebrate families, ranging from pollution tolerant to pollution sensitive, (Chironomidae, Baetidae, Hydroptilidae, Libellulidae and Lept...

Hydroclimatic risks and adaptive capacity are not distributed evenly in large river basins of federal countries, where authority is divided across national and territorial governments. Transboundary river basins are a major test of federal systems of governance because key management roles exist at all levels. This paper examines the evolution and design of interstate water allocation instituti...

In many ways, sediment transport dynamics in mountain environments differ from those of the lowlands. The high relief and the steep slopes are an obvious feature of mountain areas. The cold climate is another factor controlling runoff and erosional processes, and the distribution of vegetation is also controlled by the prevailing climate. Above the tree line, processes of erosion are more inten...

BACKGROUND Sensitizing events may trigger and stimulate discursive renewal. From a discursive institutional perspective, changing discourses are the driving force behind the institutional dynamics of policy domains. Theoretically informed by discursive institutionalism, this article assesses the impact of a series of four sensitizing events that triggered serious environmental health concerns i...

Biological water quality changes in two Mediterranean river basins from a network of 42 sampling sites assessed since 1979 are presented. In order to characterize the biological quality, the index FBILL, designed to characterize these rivers’ quality using aquatic macroinvertebrates, is used. When comparing the data from recent years to older ones, only two headwater sites from the 42 had impro...