Functional Structure of River Ecosystems: Retrospective of the Development of Contemporary Concepts (Review)

Abstract

This paper presents a review of the development of basic concepts that describe the organization of river ecosystems. The first zonal models of river description, as well as the transition to continuum concepts and their further criticism and the development of discontinuum models, are considered. The main discrete models are given as the best alternative approaches to describing the organization of the river ecosystem. The main trends of the development of ideas of the hierarchy of organization of river systems and their transformation into contemporary complex concepts are presented.