The Mississippi and Rhine rivers are two of the most polluted by heat, mainly as a result of warm-water discharge from power plants.
Catherine Raptis at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and her colleagues studied this 'thermal pollution', which can disrupt aquatic ecosystems. They quantified the thermal emissions from power plants worldwide, and found that the Mississippi River in the United States received the most heat. They then used a global model to simulate the impact of power plants on river temperatures and found that the Rhine River in Europe (pictured) had the greatest total percentage of thermally polluted waters.
European rivers showed the most extensive thermal pollution, with readings often well above regulatory limits.
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Heat-polluted rivers ranked. Nature 538, 431 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/538431d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/538431d
