The Ecology of River Ecosystems

The rapid increase in anthropogenic activities threatens the sustainability of services provided by ecosystems and some of the planetary boundaries for sustainable use have already been exceeded. Rivers are a paradigmatic example of this situation: they provide key services to society, harbour a large part of the world biodiversity. The rivers have been abstracted from, fished in, boated on and discharged into. However, they are amongst the most endangered ecosystems of our planet. All around the world there are urgent demands for comprehensive methodological approaches to evaluate the actual state of these ecosystems and to monitor their rate of changes. As such, the advances in river research have been taken into account with emphasis on the ecological aspects. The case studies of Rivers Ganga and Yamuna has been chosen in the present text.Various physical, chemical and biological attributes of these ecosystems have been discussed at length along with the seasonal dynamics,community composition,density and abundance of various biotic communities such as plankton and periphyton.Experimental observations have been critically evaluated to draw conclusions and identify trends.