Overview

RiOMar (River-dominated Ocean Margins) is a new research initiative that involves a broad spectrum of the geosciences community. This initiative specifically addresses the impact of rivers, and their associated ocean margins, on the global carbon cycle. This is a cross-cutting issue that will require interdisciplinary cooperation between the earth and ocean science communities.

Central Goal: to evaluate the role of rivers and associated ocean margins in the global cycles of carbon and other bioactive elements, and to better characterize the processes that govern the cycling and fate of bioactive elements in these environments.

Rivers are the primary interface between terrestrial and ocean environments and play a central and multi-faceted role in linking the terrestrial and marine cycles of bioactive elements --- carbon in particular. The magnitude of weathering and erosion processes on land, sediment storage within the river system, and cycling and burial processes in adjacent ocean margins collectively support the premise that rivers and RiOMar environments play an important role in global change.

The initial planning document prepared for the U.S. Global Change Research Program ("A U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Plan") provides an integrated and comprehensive overview of global carbon cycle issues, and stresses the importance of examining both the terrestrial and oceanic sinks for organic carbon. In RiOMar, we seek to understand the influence of river-dominated ocean margins (the primary connection between terrestrial and oceanic environments) on global carbon cycle processes and global change. To achieve such an understanding will require successfully dealing with many cross-cutting issues that require interdisciplinary cooperation between the earth and ocean science communities.

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