“How a river's periodic pulse affects its liver: hyporheic zones in the Anthropocene”
2025 Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecture with M. Bayani Cardenas

WaterCentre@KTH proudly invites you to a lunch lecture with the 2025 Birdsall-Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer, Professor M Bayani Cardenas, University of Texas.
Time: Mon 2025-04-28 12.00 - 13.00
Location: Sydöstra galleriet, KTH Library, Osquars backe 31
Language: English
Participating: M. Bayani Cardenas
Sixty percent of the world’s major rivers are regulated by dams. This presentation discusses water, nutrient, and thermal energy transfers throughout a dam-regulated river corridor. It showcases measurements from hyporheic zones, which function as the river’s liver, of the Lower Colorado River in Texas taken during periodic releases, natural flooding, and baseflow. Simulations of river hydraulics, groundwater flow, and energy and reactive transport generalize the observations. The models and observations collectively show how river regulation has drastically changed hydrobiogeochemical processes over potentially thousands of kilometers of rivers, reflecting the state of most large river corridors in the Anthropocene.