CAREER: Integrating river hydrology across scales: advancing understanding of the global river-atmosphere interface

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Rivers are natural hotspots for greenhouse gas emissions and are included in global carbon budget evaluations. However, the amount of greenhouse gas emitted by rivers is highly uncertain largely due to a fundamental gap in the current understanding of hydraulic scaling between small streams and large rivers. This project will develop a predictive understanding of how geomorphic and hydrologic processes combine to drive river-atmosphere interface dynamics across spatial and temporal scales. It will test underlying assumptions involved in estimating the global surface area of Earth’s rivers and streams and it will be used to more accurately estimate the global rates of greenhouse gas emissions from inland waters. The integrated research and teaching program will promote hydrologic and environmental literacy and awareness through public outreach and education, and it will help recruit and retain underrepresented minority students with the goal of increasing participation and diversity in STEM. This research will quantify the full size-distribution of river surface area within a continental-scale river basin by combining satellite, airborne, and fieldwork observations. Using these observations, this work will assess the interactions between river surfaces and streamflow at different time and spatial scales and develop a novel open-source model for predicting the river-atmosphere interface dynamics based on hydrologic drivers. The knowledge generated from this project will help fill in the conceptual gaps in our understanding of the river-atmosphere interface and develop the next generation of global river surface area products used in carbon budgets. This research will also untangle the hydrologic and geomorphic drivers of changing river morphology, advancing our understanding of how humans are impacting river systems and aquatic ecosystems. This award is co-funded by the Hydrologic Sciences and Geomorphology & Land-use Dynamics programs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.