Characterising the drivers of tropical freshwater fish dynamics and abundance in the Mekong river, under environmental change

The Mekong river’s monsoon driven annual flood pulse creates a range of diverse habitats, with high levels of connectivity and primary productivity that support and trigger fish migratory dynamics and abundance. This abundance is reflected in the fact that the Mekong is the World’s most productive inland fisheries, supporting between 2.8-3.2 million tonnes of catch annually, underpinning the food security of over 70 million people.This thesis explores the impacts of climate change and anthropogenic activity on Mekong hydrology and system function, and the impacts these have on fish and fisheries. It combines an interdisciplinary approach utilising earth observation, historical fisheries data and hydrological records, alongside the application of hydrological modelling tools and the testing of new environmental DNA metabarcoding analyses, in order to explore how changes in Mekong hydrology will affect fish populations into the future.The results highlight a range of projected negative impacts of hydropower development, irrigation expansion and climate change on the dai fisheryresources, and in turn a range of significant impacts on regional fish protein availability, which primarily result from the blockage of key migratory routes caused by dam construction as well as changes in the timing of the flood pulse in key areas in the basin such as Tonle Sap Great Lake. The findings in this study urge a need to prioritise environmental conservation action centred on a need to maintain the historical flood pulse hydrologic regime of the Mekong river. Such a pulse is shown to be important in sustaining floodplain flood dynamics and habitat connectivity that maintains the critical dai fishery, enables migratory fish dynamics, and is thus key to overall regional food security

Dynamic transport of the sediment and nutrient in the Mekong River Basin and the role of the Tonle Sap Lake : Assessment coupling data and modelling approaches

The Asian river basins are great contributors to sediments and nutrient to the seas. These rivers are subject to the influence of climate variability and human activities, which alter the nutrient transport and fate of water quality. The Mekong River is a transboundary river in Southeast Asia and plays an important role in economy, agriculture and also by contributing fluxes into the Mekong delta and into the sea. Within the Mekong basin, the Tonle Sap area is a complex system with a unique reverse flow between Tonle Sap Lake and the Mekong River. Sediment and nutrient in the Mekong River are important to sustain the geomorphology of the floodplains and particularly the Tonle Sap Lake. At the same time, Tonle Sap Lake are contributing the sediment and nutrient for the Mekong delta. Therefore, the sediment and nutrient assessment in the Mekong River and its linkage between the Mekong mainstream and the Tonle Sap Lake would be necessary to evaluate. The study was to assess the dynamic transport of sediment and nutrient in the Mekong River Basin and evaluate the role of the Tonle Sap to the Mekong River through the coupling data and modelling approaches. The physical-based SWAT model was used upstream of the Mekong delta to simulate the water regime and suspended sediment and nutrient flux of the Mekong River. The SWAT model was calibrated based on observed discharge at eight gauge stations, suspended sediment load at six stations and nutrient data at five stations from 1995 to 2016 at a monthly time step. To understand the role of Tonle Sap Lake in sediment and nutrient to Mekong River, the study considered the balanced of the Tonle Sap reverse system at seasonal and annual scales. Before entering the confluence of Mekong and Tonle Sap Lake and delta, the sediment load is found 72±26 Mt/year with a decreasing annual trend from 1995 to 2018. The annual sediment yield of the upper 80% Mekong River basin (310 t/km2/year) is comparable with sediment yields reported for other world major rivers. The Mekong annual average riverine nitrate yield was 202 kg/km2/year with 361.8±83.5 kt/year from 1985-2016 of annual nitrate flux before entering the Mekong delta. The sediment loads variability of the Mekong River and Tonle Sap system presented in this study helps clarify the exchange annual discharge and sediment load toward the Mekong delta. The study also highlighted that the fact that Tonle Sap is the sediment sink (1.35±0.7 Mt annually) in the Mekong basin lead to a reduction in sediment supply, which compounds the threat to the delta from accelerated subsidence and sea-level rise. The study has emphasized the interaction role of Tonle Sap Lake and Mekong in nutrient supply for the Mekong delta. On the annual scale, it is worth discussing these interesting results revealed Tonle Sap Lake contributed 34 kt/year of nitrate and 6.6 kt/year of total phosphorus to the Mekong system or Mekong Delta. In contrast, the Mekong River shared nitrate flux 35.8 kt/year and 8.7 kt/year of total phosphorus to Tonle Sap Lake and its floodplain during the high flow season. Future studies of hydrology together with sediment and nutrients can be carried on based on this model with scenarios of global changes, such as climate changes and land-use changes and include the sediment and nutrient input to Tonle Sap Lake system from the lake tributaries and interconnect with the Mekong River basin model

Using Remote Sensing Techniques to Improve Hydrological Predictions in a Rapidly Changing World

Remotely sensed geophysical datasets are being produced at increasingly fast rates to monitor various aspects of the Earth system in a rapidly changing world. The efficient and innovative use of these datasets to understand hydrological processes in various climatic and vegetation regimes under anthropogenic impacts has become an important challenge, but with a wide range of research opportunities. The ten contributions in this Special Issue have addressed the following four research topics: (1) Evapotranspiration estimation; (2) rainfall monitoring and prediction; (3) flood simulations and predictions; and (4) monitoring of ecohydrological processes using remote sensing techniques. Moreover, the authors have provided broader discussions on how to capitalize on state-of-the-art remote sensing techniques to improve hydrological model simulations and predictions, to enhance their skills in reproducing processes for the fast-changing world

Inundações em múltiplas escalas na América do Sul : de áreas úmidas a áreas de risco

South America hosts some of the major river systems on Earth, often associated with large floodplains that are inundated every year, such as the Pantanal and many Amazon wetlands. Interfluvial wetland complexes are also found across the continent, with particular geomorphic settings and unique savanna or grassland vegetation. South American wetlands can provide distinctive ecosystem services such as biodiversity supporting, food provision and flood attenuation. On the other hand, humans have settled around wetlands for millennia, benefiting from all resources they provide, and have adapted to its flood regime as well adapted its landscape, defining what has been called human-water systems. Yet, an increasing number of South American people have been negatively affected by extreme floods. Moving from continental to local scales, this thesis invites the readers to a journey across major South American wetland systems and their unique hydrological dynamics, under the light of the satellite era and the breakthrough advances on hydrologic-hydrodynamic modeling in the last decades. This work is founded on the proposition of a continental wetland research agenda, and based on a comparative hydrology approach. Floods are studied through both natural wetland processes and hazard dimensions. The first part presents a set of studies on the Amazon basin wetlands, from the development of 1D and 2D models to simulate hydrological processes in contrasting wetland types in the Negro river basin to the basin-wide intercomparison of 29 inundation products and assessment of long-term inundation trends. While most wetland studies have been conducted over the central Amazon floodplains, major knowledge gaps remain for understanding the hydrological dynamics of interfluvial areas such as the Llanos de Moxos and Negro savannas, where the inundation is less predictable and shallower. The second part of the thesis leverages satellite-based datasets of multiple hydrological variables (water levels, total water storage, inundation extent, precipitation and evapotranspiration) to address the hydrology of 12 large wetland systems in the continent. It shows the major differences among river floodplains and interfluvial wetlands on the water level annual amplitude, time lag between precipitation and inundation, and evapotranspiration dynamics. Finally, the third part addresses the flood hazard component of human-wetland interactions through large-scale assessments of flood hazard dynamics and effects of built infrastructure (dams) on flood attenuation. The dynamics of the great 1983 floods, one of the most extreme years ever recorded in the continent, is assessed with a continental hydrological model. Then, the capabilities of continental models to simulate the river-floodplain-reservoir continuum that exists across large river basins are assessed with case studies for major river basins affected by human intervention (Itajaí-Açu and upper Paraná river basins in Brazil). While this thesis enlightens some relevant hydrological processes regarding South American floods and their positive and negative effects to human societies and ecosystems in general, major knowledge gaps persist and provide great research opportunities for the near future. The launching of many hydrology-oriented satellite missions, and an ever-growing computational capacity, make the continental hydrology agenda related to wetlands and floods a great research topic for the upcoming years.A América do Sul abriga alguns dos maiores sistemas hídricos do planeta, frequentemente associados a grandes planícies de inundação, como o Pantanal e várias áreas da Amazônia. Áreas úmidas (AU’s) interfluviais são também encontrados no continente, com características geomorfológicas particulares, e vegetações de savana e gramíneas únicas. As AU’s da América do Sul provêm diversos serviços ecossistêmicos, como suporte à biodiversidade, provisão de alimento e atenuação de cheias. Humanos têm se estabelecido ao redor de AU’s por milênios, se beneficiando dos recursos providos por elas. Eles se adaptaram ao seu regime de inundação, e adaptaram sua paisagem, definindo o que tem sido chamado de sistemas sociedade-água. Por outro lado, um número crescente de pessoas têm sido negativamente afetado por cheias extremas. Da escala continental à local, esta tese convida o leitor a uma jornada através de importantes AU’s da América do Sul e suas particulares dinâmicas de inundação, sob a luz da era dos satélites e dos grandes avanços em modelagem hidrológica-hidrodinâmica das últimas décadas. Este trabalho é baseado na proposta de uma escala continental de pesquisa sobre AU’s, e é baseado em uma abordagem de hidrologia comparativa. Inundações são estudadas em múltiplas dimensões, de processos de AU’s naturais à questão do perigo para humanos. A primeira parte apresenta uma série de estudos sobre as AU’s da bacia amazônica, desde o desenvolvimento de modelos 1D e 2D para simular processos hidrológicos em tipos contrastantes de AU’s na bacia do Rio Negro, até a intercomparação de 29 produtos de inundação e avaliação de tendências de inundações de longo prazo para a escala da bacia amazônica. Enquanto a maioria dos estudos de AU’s foi conduzida nas várzeas do rio Amazonas, importantes lacunas do conhecimento permanecem para a compreensão da dinâmica hidrológica de áreas interfluviais como Llanos de Moxos e as savanas do rio Negro, onde a inundação é menos previsível e mais rasa. A segunda parte da tese utiliza dados oriundos de satélites relacionados a múltiplas variáveis hidrológicas (níveis d’água, armazenamento total de água, extensão de áreas inundadas, precipitação e evapotranspiração) para estudar a hidrologia de 12 grandes sistemas de AU’s do continente. São destacadas as grandes diferenças entre planícies de inundação e AU’s interfluviais em termos de amplitude anual de níveis d’água, defasagem entre precipitação e inundação, e dinâmica de evapotranspiração. Por fim, a última parte da tese aborda o componente de perigo de inundação das interações sociedade-água através de avaliações em grande escala da dinâmica de inundação e dos efeitos de infraestruturas construídas (como barragens) na atenuação de cheias. A dinâmica das grandes cheias de 1983, um dos anos mais extremos já registrados no continente, é avaliada com um modelo hidrológico continental. Depois, a capacidade de modelos continentais para simular o continuum entre rios, planícies de inundação e reservatórios que existe em grandes bacias hidrográficas é avaliada com estudos de casos para importantes bacias afetadas pela intervenção humana (bacia dos rios Paraná e Itajaí-Açu). Enquanto esta tese avança a compreensão de relevantes processos hidrológicos relacionados a inundações na América do Sul em múltiplas escalas, bem como seus efeitos positivos e negativos nas sociedades humanas e ecossistemas em geral, importantes lacunas do conhecimento persistem e fomentam importantes oportunidades de pesquisa futuras. O lançamento de várias missões satelitais orientadas a hidrologia, e uma cada vez mais crescente capacidade computacional, faz da agenda continental de hidrologia relacionada a AU’s e inundações um grande tópico de pesquisa para os próximos anos

Water quality and pollutant dynamics in the Three Gorges Reservoir on the Yangtze River, China = Wasserqualität und Schadstoffdynamik im Drei-Schluchten-Reservoir am Yangtze, China

This dissertation provides scientific contributions to a sustainable management of the newly created ecosystem along the TGR on the Yangtze River in China. Measurements with the in situ and online multi-sensor system MINIBAT provide detailed insights into water quality and ecosystem processes in both spatial and temporal resolution. Based on the findings about pollutant sources and transportation as well as eutrophication and algal blooms, possible mitigation measures have been derived

Factors influencing river discharge variability in the Himalayan mountain region: a case study of two catchments with contrasting geographical settings

This study examined variabilities in precipitation, temperature, river discharge and land use/land cover in two of the Ganges sub-catchments in the Himalayan mountains region of Nepal using historical data between 1970 and 2017. Urban land increased substantially in Bagmati catchment while snow/glacier cover decreased in the Marsyangdi catchment. Precipitation showed decreasing trend while minimum and maximum temperatures as well as diurnal temperature range were increasing. Consequently, river discharge in Bagmati catchment was decreasing but was increasing in Marsyangdi basin

Water Resource Variability and Climate Change

Climate change affects global and regional water cycling, as well as surficial and subsurface water availability. These changes have increased the vulnerabilities of ecosystems and of human society. Understanding how climate change has affected water resource variability in the past and how climate change is leading to rapid changes in contemporary systems is of critical importance for sustainable development in different parts of the world. This Special Issue focuses on “Water Resource Variability and Climate Change” and aims to present a collection of articles addressing various aspects of water resource variability as well as how such variabilities are affected by changing climates. Potential topics include the reconstruction of historic moisture fluctuations, based on various proxies (such as tree rings, sediment cores, and landform features), the empirical monitoring of water variability based on field survey and remote sensing techniques, and the projection of future water cycling using numerical model simulations