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Beaver dams overshadow climate extremes in controlling riparian hydrology and water quality

Hydrologic extremes dominate chemical exports from riparian zones and dictate water quality in major river systems. Yet, changes in land use and ecosystem services alongside growing climate variability are altering hydrologic extremes and their coupled impacts on riverine water quality. In the weste...

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Autores principales: Dewey, Christian, Fox, Patricia M., Bouskill, Nicholas J., Dwivedi, Dipankar, Nico, Peter, Fendorf, Scott
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9643325/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36347847
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34022-0
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author Dewey, Christian
Fox, Patricia M.
Bouskill, Nicholas J.
Dwivedi, Dipankar
Nico, Peter
Fendorf, Scott
author_facet Dewey, Christian
Fox, Patricia M.
Bouskill, Nicholas J.
Dwivedi, Dipankar
Nico, Peter
Fendorf, Scott
author_sort Dewey, Christian
collection PubMed
description Hydrologic extremes dominate chemical exports from riparian zones and dictate water quality in major river systems. Yet, changes in land use and ecosystem services alongside growing climate variability are altering hydrologic extremes and their coupled impacts on riverine water quality. In the western U.S., warming temperatures and intensified aridification are increasingly paired with the expanding range of the American beaver—and their dams, which transform hydrologic and biogeochemical cycles in riparian systems. Here, we show that beaver dams overshadow climatic hydrologic extremes in their effects on water residence time and oxygen and nitrogen fluxes in the riparian subsurface. In a mountainous watershed in Colorado, U.S.A., we find that the increase in riparian hydraulic gradients imposed by a beaver dam is 10.7–13.3 times greater than seasonal hydrologic extremes. The massive hydraulic gradient increases hyporheic nitrate removal by 44.2% relative to seasonal extremes alone. A drier, hotter climate in the western U.S. will further expand the range of beavers and magnify their impacts on watershed hydrology and biogeochemistry, illustrating that ecosystem feedbacks to climate change will alter water quality in river systems.
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spelling pubmed-96433252022-11-15 Beaver dams overshadow climate extremes in controlling riparian hydrology and water quality Dewey, Christian Fox, Patricia M. Bouskill, Nicholas J. Dwivedi, Dipankar Nico, Peter Fendorf, Scott Nat Commun Article Hydrologic extremes dominate chemical exports from riparian zones and dictate water quality in major river systems. Yet, changes in land use and ecosystem services alongside growing climate variability are altering hydrologic extremes and their coupled impacts on riverine water quality. In the western U.S., warming temperatures and intensified aridification are increasingly paired with the expanding range of the American beaver—and their dams, which transform hydrologic and biogeochemical cycles in riparian systems. Here, we show that beaver dams overshadow climatic hydrologic extremes in their effects on water residence time and oxygen and nitrogen fluxes in the riparian subsurface. In a mountainous watershed in Colorado, U.S.A., we find that the increase in riparian hydraulic gradients imposed by a beaver dam is 10.7–13.3 times greater than seasonal hydrologic extremes. The massive hydraulic gradient increases hyporheic nitrate removal by 44.2% relative to seasonal extremes alone. A drier, hotter climate in the western U.S. will further expand the range of beavers and magnify their impacts on watershed hydrology and biogeochemistry, illustrating that ecosystem feedbacks to climate change will alter water quality in river systems. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-11-08 /pmc/articles/PMC9643325/ /pubmed/36347847 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34022-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Dewey, Christian
Fox, Patricia M.
Bouskill, Nicholas J.
Dwivedi, Dipankar
Nico, Peter
Fendorf, Scott
Beaver dams overshadow climate extremes in controlling riparian hydrology and water quality
title Beaver dams overshadow climate extremes in controlling riparian hydrology and water quality
title_full Beaver dams overshadow climate extremes in controlling riparian hydrology and water quality
title_fullStr Beaver dams overshadow climate extremes in controlling riparian hydrology and water quality
title_full_unstemmed Beaver dams overshadow climate extremes in controlling riparian hydrology and water quality
title_short Beaver dams overshadow climate extremes in controlling riparian hydrology and water quality
title_sort beaver dams overshadow climate extremes in controlling riparian hydrology and water quality
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9643325/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36347847
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34022-0
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