Water Cycling Across Aquatic Interfaces: How It Works and Why It Matters from the Pore Scale to the Continental Scale
Presenter
M. Bayani Cardenas, Department of Geological Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin
Abstract
Rivers and aquifers are intimately linked. Where these two connect, at the portion of the porous and permeable sediments adjacent to and below the river called hyporheic zones, myriad physical and biogeochemical processes take place. What makes the processes unique is that they are driven by and exchange feedback with large physical and chemical gradients. These processes can determine water quality from the scale of grains to bedforms to reaches, and eventually integrate to impact watersheds at the continental scale. This presentation will highlight studies that explain the mechanics and chemistry of river–hyporheic–aquifer processes across all the scales above and thread them together.
