Shock discovery: Half of global rivers 'evaporate' 24 hours a year, what catastrophe does this imply?

In this 21st century, this is so amazing!

The lifeline of the Earth is "killed"?

A new study led by researchers from McGill University (Canada) and the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) has found that between 51-60% Out of the 64 million kilometers of the total length of the rivers and streams on Earth, they either stop flowing periodically or dry up at least one day a year.

An example for this phenomenon is Canada's Slims River . For the first time in modern history, the scientific world witnessed a large river disappear completely in just. 96 hours! The Slims River is fed by meltwater from Canada's largest glacier, Kaskawuls h. The entire water of the river averaged 480 meters wide has completely disappeared.

Ice-walled gorge at the end of the Kaskawulsh Glacier, with newly collapsed icebergs. (Credit: Jim Best/University Of Illinois)

Scientists call this extraordinary phenomenon termed as "River piracy" (The river disappears) for just the river suddenly b i "drain water". People see the phenomenon of "River piracy" in documents from thousands of years, even millions of years. In this 21st century, this is so amazing!

At the end of February 2021, SCMP reported that the Yangtze River (also known as the Yangtze River) was "killed" by humans to the point of death. After decades of sand dredging, dam construction, massive mining, pollution and overfishing, the Yangtze River is dying.

After decades of examining records from ground stations and satellite images, the researchers estimate that the Yangtze River's water level has dropped by about 2 centimeters on average every five years since the 1980s. The clear blue water, the longest river in Asia and the third in the world, turns yellow and stinks.

Whether objectively or subjectively, large and small rivers in the world are affected very negatively.

Why is this?

"These rivers can provide an important source of water and food for humans," said Mathis Messager, first author of the study and a doctoral student in geography at both McGill University (Canada) and INRAE. They play an important role in controlling water quality. But, it is worth mentioning that they are frequently mismanaged or completely excluded from conservation law and management practices."

Bernhard Lehner, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University added: "As the global climate continues to change, global warming continues to increase, and the demand for land increases with population size. , an increasing proportion of the global river network will stop seasonally flowing in the coming decades".

In fact, many perennial rivers and streams, including iconic passages such as the Nile (Egypt), Indus River (Pakistan) and Colorado River (North America) have become discontinuous in the past. the past 50 years due to climate change, land use change, temporary or permanent.

National Geographic once reported that the Yellow River (5,464 km long, the second longest river in Asia), the Murray River (2,375 km long, Australia), the Rio Grande River (3,051 km long, North America) are three of the Rivers on the planet are in danger of gradually disappearing due to climate change and human overuse of water and river resources.

In fact, man-made climate change not only makes rivers/streams so abnormal, it also puts people in danger of life and work. Never before has this problem returned. so urgent and on such a large scale .

The fact that rivers are "sick" can affect living water, resources under the river (fish, shrimp, etc.) and may cause people to fall into a global clean water crisis.

The Colorado River runs through the Grand Canyon. (Photo: Tonda/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The researchers were able to identify the environmental features that are most important in determining whether a river periodically stops flowing by statistically combining long-term records of water discharge at 5,615 locations in the world with information on the hydrology, climate, geology and surrounding land cover of observed rivers and streams.

They found, as expected, that non-perennial rivers were most common in arid places (where evaporation outweighs precipitation) and smaller rivers and streams had more variable flows and therefore that is more likely to dry up. But they also occur in tropical climates and even in the Arctic, where rivers are frozen for many times of the year.

The work of expert group Mathis Messager is the first experimentally grounded attempt to quantify the global distribution of non-perennial rivers and streams. The study, published in the journal Nature, calls for a paradigm shift in river science and management by modifying the basic concepts traditionally thought of as 'year-round flow' in rivers and streams. .

The map also provides important background information for assessing future changes in river/stream disruption and for identifying or monitoring the role of these rivers/streams in the water system. global nature.