PhD project: Biogeochemical functioning of intermittent rivers in temperate regions
Hydrological Sciences (HS)
Intermittent rivers and ephemeral streams (IRES) represent nearly half of the world’s hydrological network, and experts anticipate that their prevalence is likely to increase as a consequence of global change (Datry et al. 2014). Research efforts in recent years have helped improve the characterization of IRES (Sauquet et al. 2021) and evaluate their influence on aquatic organisms and biogeochemical reactions (Datry et al. 2018). These studies, however, mainly focus on arid and Mediterranean regions, and few studies have investigated wet-temperate regions despite the high prevalence of IRES in these contexts (Snelder et al. 2013). In temperate regions, where the concentration in nutrients from agricultural origin is high in rivers, we lack knowledge on the consequence of flow intermittence on water quality in relation with C-N-P cycles (C and P solubilisation, denitrification, etc) and particulate transport. The objective of this PhD project is to characterize the spatio-temporal dynamics of the biogeochemical functioning of temperate IRES in agricultural headwater catchments.