The significance of river water physico-chemical monitoring: is climate change increasing the intensity and rate of rock weathering?

The alteration of rainfall patterns, the possible worldwide increase of mean temperatures, and the recurrence of extreme climatic events roughly describe climate change, as widely perceived. Accordingly, geochemical investigations are researching if climate change may accelerate the weathering of crustal rocks, through its net effect on the chemical composition of conveyed waters and the volume and nature of the mineral debris ultimately reaching coastal seas. Jointly with inorganic phases, rivers export organic carbon and nutrients from the continents as particulate and dissolved matter, either refractory or labile. Given this possibly evolving scenario, ongoing climate change will probably modify the Earth’s exogenous cycle, to which extent remains uncertain. It is, therefore, advisable that river monitoring, should expand chemical as well as sediment transport information along with water discharge, thus allowing to follow the evolution of important environmental features, and recommending adequate policies to monitor the evolution of worldwide weathering (i.e. jointly with river flow series), continental denudation, and—above all—river-linked CO2 dynamics.