Floodplain inundation and lateral connectivity promote productivity in a managed river ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: River-floodplain ecosystems near urban centers are heavily engineered for flood protection and water delivery, which has led to a loss of lateral hydrologic connectivity between rivers and their floodplains. This study has two objectives: (1) Does increased lateral connectivity resulting from floodplain inundation increase chlorophyll a biomass? (2) Does that bump in chlorophyll a get transported downstream? The San Francisco Estuary in California, USA, has a robust and long-term monitoring network for water quality. We integrated water temperature, chlorophyll a, flow, and floodplain inundation data from multiple sources creating a continuous dataset with fine temporal resolution spanning two decades. We used a consistent generalized additive mixed model structure across three regions: th

SUBMITTER: Khanna S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12641158 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature