Tropical Rivers as Expressions of Their Terrestrial Environments

Abstract

When limnology was founded about 90 years ago, the only object of that new science was the study of inland lakes. A lake was then considered to be a microcosm—“a little world for itself” (Forbes, 1887). Some years later, Forel (1901) discovered that a lake is in direct or indirect connection with the atmosphere, with its surrounding firm land, with its catchment area, and by its outflow with the ocean. He concluded “every lake is an organ of the earth.” Later on, Naumann (1932) developed the concept of regional limnology, basing it on the interrelations of the lakes with their environment. Even so, present limnological studies in relation to lakes concentrate mostly on the network of intralacustrine interactions, and on that structure of causes and effects that describes a lake as an ecosystem, and not on the connections of the lake to its terrestrial environment.