Mapping soil texture in a river basin is critically important for eco-hydrological studies and water resource management at the watershed scale. However, due to the scarcity of in situ observation of soil texture, it is very difficult to map the soil texture in high resolution using traditional methods. Here, we used an integrated method based on fuzzy logic theory and data fusion to map the so...

The Tennessee River Basin is considered one of the most important regions for freshwater biodiversity anywhere on the globe. The Tennessee River Basin currently includes populations of at least half of the described contemporary diversity of extant North American freshwater fishes, crayfish, mussel, and gastropod species. However, comparatively little is known about the biodiversity of this bas...

Models are essential in a decision support system for river basin management. In a decision support system for integrated planning and management, the use of appropriate models is important to avoid models being either too simple or too complex. In this paper, appropriate models refer to models that are good-enough-but-not-more-than-that to obtain an acceptable ranking of river engineering meas...

The metabolism of a river basin is defined as the set of processes through which the basin maintains its structure and responds to its environment. Green (or biotic) metabolism is measured via transpiration and blue (or abiotic) metabolism through runoff. A principle of equal metabolic rate per unit area throughout the basin structure is developed and tested in a river basin characterized by la...

Managers of large river basins face conflicting demands for water resources such as wildlife habitat, water supply, wastewater assimilative capacity, flood control, hydroelectricity, and recreation. The Savannah River Basin, for example, has experienced three major droughts since 2000 that resulted in record low water levels in its reservoirs, impacting dependent economies for years. The Savann...

The water of the Colorado River of the southwestern United States (U.S.) is presently used beyond its reliable supply, and the flow of this river is forecast to decrease significantly due to climate change. A recent interim report of the Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study is the first acknowledgment of these facts by U.S. federal water managers. In light of this new stance, we e...

In recent years, the population size and scale of the Shiyang River Basin unceasingly expanding lead to a series of ecological environment: surface water reducing, land desertification and Ground water levels fall, etc. Research evolution characteristics of population distribution and migration growth of Shiyang River Basin contribute to river water resources and the industrial development of t...

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) poses an immense challenge to integrated water management in Europe. Aiming at a “good ecological status” of all water resources in 2015, integrated river basin management plans need to be in place by 2009, and need to be broadly supported by stakeholders. Cost effective programmes of measures must be put in place to meet the objective of “good ecological sta...

27 We investigate the interannual variability over 2003-2007 of different hydrological parameters in 28 the Amazon river basin: vertically-integrated water storage from the GRACE space gravimetry 29 mission, surface water level over the Amazon River and its tributaries from in situ gauges, and 30 precipitation. We analyze the spatio-temporal evolution of total water storage from GRACE and 31 in...

Water quality monitoring network design has historically tended to use experience, intuition and subjective judgement in locating monitoring stations. Better design procedures to optimize monitoring systems need to simultaneously identify significant planning objectives and consider a number of social, economic and environmental constraints. The consideration of multiple objectives may require ...