Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Ecohydrology

River ecosystem metabolism and carbon cycling

Nature Water volume 1, page 224 (2023)Cite this article

Now, Pier Luigi Segatto and colleagues from Ecole Polytechinque Fédérale de Lausanne and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice have proposed a spatially distributed, process-based modelling framework that simulates both the temporal and spatial dynamics of ecosystem metabolism and related organic carbon fluxes at the network scale. The model capacity was tested for the Ybbs River network in Austria. The authors further investigated the influences of changing environmental drivers on river ecosystem metabolism and its responses to warming temperatures and altered hydrological regimes.

The model could reproduce well the metabolic regimes observed in 12 reaches of the Ybbs river network, and the results suggest that a 2.5 °C increase in stream water temperature could lead to increases in ER and GPP by 33% (24%– 57%) and 28% (5%–57%), respectively. The effect of variations in hydrological regime was found to be complex and dependent on autotrophic biomass density.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nature Water https://www.nature.com/natwater/

    Yanhua Chen

Authors
  1. Yanhua Chen
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yanhua Chen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Chen, Y. River ecosystem metabolism and carbon cycling. Nat Water 1, 224 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00060-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Version of record:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-023-00060-1

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing