Aqua Incognita: the unknown headwaters

• DOI: 10.1002/hyp.7049
• Publication Date: 2008-03-11T18:50:59Z
• Authors: K. Bishop; I. Buffam; M. Erlandsson; J. Fölster; H. Laudon; J. Seibert; J. Temnerud
• Keywords: 10122 Institute of Geography; 2312 Water Science and Technology; 13. Climate action; 0207 environmental engineering; 02 engineering and technology; 910 Geography & travel; 15. Life on land; 6. Clean water; Water Science and Technology

Running water comprises just over one millionth of the world’s water.The importance of those streams and rivers as a resource for humanwelfare and biodiversity, however, is far out of proportion to thatminuscule fraction. This explains why protecting running waters (theflow regimes, water quality and biota) is such a vital concern for society.Yet for all the focus and concern, how much do we actually know aboutthese running waters, and the lotic habitat they comprise?Consider what would happen if one asked any national environmentalauthority to assess the basic chemical and ecological status of runningwaters. At the river mouths, there would be enough information tomake a reasonable assessment of the status. But somewhere on theway upstream, available data would run dry, long before most streamchannels did (in non-arid regions).In Sweden, with an ambitious programme for monitoring and assess-ing surface waters, it came as a surprise several years ago to realizethat the length of all perennial streams on the country’s maps was notknown. When that was modelled in the form of a ‘virtual network’ froma50m