The thermal regime of streams is a relevant driver of their ecological functioning. As this regime is presently submitted to numerous alterations (among others, impoundments, and climate change), it seems important to study both their effects and potential recovery from the latter. Thus, we investigated the surface and hyporheic water temperature along a small headwater stream with contrasting environmental contexts: forest landscape, open grassland landscape without riparian vegetation, several artificial run-of-the-river impoundments and one discharge point of a by-pass impoundment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis article presents field measurements that document the physical and chemical response of riverbeds to critical hydrological and sedimentary forcing in the Selune River (France). The river flows into the bay of Mont Saint-Michel and thus impacts numerous economic activities and the spawning of several key species such as Atlantic salmon and lamprey. To restore the hydro-sedimentary continuity of the river, two dams are currently being removed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis work describes the use of different complementing methods (mass balance, polymerase chain reaction assays and compound-specific stable isotope analysis) to demonstrate the existence and effectiveness of biodegradation of chlorinated solvents in an alluvial aquifer. The solvent-contaminated site is an old chemical factory located in an alluvial plain in France. As most of the chlorinated contaminants currently found in the groundwater at this site were produced by local industries at various times in the past, it is not enough to analyze chlorinated solvent concentrations along a flow path to convincingly demonstrate biodegradation.
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