Irreversibility in river flow

Abstract

In the last twenty years, the entropy generation approach has been developed in order to analyse complex systems (open and irreversible). The first applications of the entropy generation extrema theorem were developed on energy systems, but recently, it has also been extended to biological systems in order to evaluate their stationary states. In this paper, the entropy generation is analyzed in relation to the hydrological and hydraulic behaviour of rivers. An example is developed on the Tanaro River in Piedmont (Italy).