Historically in Puget Lowland rivers, wood jams were integral to maintaining an anastomosing channel pattern and a dynamic channel–floodplain connection; they also created deep pools. In the late 1800s, wood was removed from most rivers, rivers were isolated from their floodplains, and riparian forests were cut down, limiting wood recruitment. An exception to this history is an 11-km-long reach...

For centuries, the Ganges River in India has been the locus of sacred rites for the Hindus. The religious significance of the Ganges is physically manifested in ghats (stepped landings) that form the land-water interface. Besides serving as a site for religious bathing and cremation, the ghats are also tied to people’s livelihoods and are an inseparable part of their daily lives. Today, the inc...

It has been widely documented that municipal wastewater treatment plant effluents are a major source of artificial sweeteners to surface waters. However, in rural areas, the extent to which septic systems contribute these same compounds to groundwater aquifers is largely unknown. We examined the occurrence of four commonly used artificial sweeteners in an unconfined sand aquifer that serves as ...

Drainage networks on terrains have been studied extensively from an algorithmic perspective. However, in drainage networks water flow cannot bifurcate and hence they do not model braided rivers (multiple channels which split and join, separated by sediment bars). We initiate the algorithmic study of braided rivers by employing the descending quasi Morse-Smale complex on the river bed (a polyhed...

Ulhas river estuary (73°14′E, 19°14′N to 72°54′E, 19°17′N) and Thane creek (72°55′E, 19°N to 73°E, 19°15′N) near Mumbai, India are highly polluted owing to the heavy load of industrial pollutants and sewage discharge. The traditional fisher-folk living along the banks of Ulhas river estuary and Thane Creek rely on these contaminated fish for their daily sustenance, thereby being exposed to heav...

Within impounded sections of the rivers Rhine and Meuse, epibenthic macroinvertebrate communities are impoverished and dominated by non-native invasive species such as the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) and quagga mussel (Dreissena rostriformis bugensis). In the winter of 2012 management of the water-level resulted in a low-water event in the River Nederrijn, but not in the River Meuse. Lo...

BACKGROUND The extent to which Alberta oil sands mining and upgrading operations have enhanced delivery of bitumen-derived contaminants via the Athabasca River and atmosphere to the Peace-Athabasca Delta (200 km to the north) is a pivotal question that has generated national and international concern. Accounts of rare health disorders in residents of Fort Chipewyan and deformed fish in downstre...

Large quantities of radioactive materials released over time from the Mayak nuclear weapons facility caused significant internal and external exposure for people living along the banks of the Techa River (Southern Urals, Russia). We conducted a nested case-control study in the Extended Techa River Cohort to determine whether the risk of leukaemia incidence increased with protracted exposure to ...