Rivers are critical resources that affect everything from watersheds to agriculture to energy.
Rivers are critical resources that affect everything from watersheds to agriculture to energy. But rivers, in turn, have been impacted by humans, often in the form of hydraulic infrastructure such as dams and wells.
A new project, led by Stefano Galelli, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering, will create a global record that shows how river systems around the world have changed under human influence over the last 75 years.
The project, Dynamic Atlas of Riverine Ecosystems and infrastructure (DARE), received a $5 million grant from Schmidt Sciences as part of the foundation’s Virtual Institute for Earth’s Water (VIEW) program, which aims to create a definitive account of the planet’s freshwater resources.
By using satellite data and computational modeling, the five-year project will track changes in river discharge, sediment transport, temperature and fish biodiversity in all the world’s rivers from 1950 to 2025.
Read More: Cornell University
Photo Credit: Camera-man via Pixabay
