River Colors are Changing

Much like the sky, rivers are rarely painted one color. Across the world, they appear in shades of yellow, green, blue, and brown. Subtle changes in the environment can alter the color of rivers, though, shifting them away from their typical hues. New research shows the dominant color has changed in about one-third of large rivers in the continental United States over the past 35 years  “Changes in river color serve as a first pass that tell us something is going on nearby,” said John Gardner, the study’s lead author and a hydrologist at the University of Pittsburgh. “There are a lot of details to parse out on what is causing those changes, though.” - NASA Earth Observatory