ALBERT

Description: Abstract Pore development in natural porous media, as a result of mineral dissolution in flowing fluid, generates complex microstructures. Although the underlying dynamics of fluid flow and the kinetics of the dissolution reactions have been carefully analyzed in many scenarios, it remains interesting to ask if the preferentially developed flow paths share certain general petrophysical properties. Here we combine in situ X‐ray imaging with network modeling to study pore development in chalk driven by acidic fluid flow under ambient condition. We show that the trajectory of a growing pore correlates with the flow path that minimizes cumulative surface—the overall surface area available to fluid within the residence time—calculated along streamlines. This correlation is not a coincidence because cumulative surface determines conversion of reactant and thus defines the position of dissolution front. Model simulations show that, as fluid channelizes, the growth of the leading pore in the flow direction is guided by migration of the most far‐reaching dissolution front, even in an ever‐changing flow field. In addition, we present a complete tomographic time series of microstructure erosion and show a good accord between the in situ observation and the model simulation. Our results suggest that the microscopic pore development is a deterministic process while being sensitive to stochastic perturbations to the migrating dissolution front.

Description: In developing a reliable approach for inferring hydrological properties through inverse modeling of tracer data, decisions made on how to parameterize heterogeneity (i.e., how to represent a heterogeneous distribution using a limited number of parameters that are amenable to estimation) are of paramount importance, as errors in the model structure are partly compensated for by estimating biased property values during the inversion. These biased estimates, while potentially providing an improved fit to the calibration data, may lead to wrong interpretations and conclusions and reduce the ability of the model to make reliable predictions. We consider the estimation of spatial variations in permeability and several other parameters through inverse modeling of tracer data, specifically synthetic and actual field data associated with the 2007 Winchester experiment from the Department of Energy Rifle site. Characterization is challenging due to the real-world complexities associated with field experiments in such a dynamic groundwater system. Our aim is to highlight and quantify the impact on inversion results of various decisions related to parameterization, such as the positioning of pilot points in a geostatistical parameterization; the handling of up-gradient regions; the inclusion of zonal information derived from geophysical data or core logs; extension from 2-D to 3-D; assumptions regarding the gradient direction, porosity, and the semivariogram function; and deteriorating experimental conditions. This work adds to the relatively limited number of studies that offer guidance on the use of pilot points in complex real-world experiments involving tracer data (as opposed to hydraulic head data).

Description: Groundwater can be a source of both water and salts in semiarid areas, and therefore, capillary pressure–induced upward water flow may cause root zone salinization. To identify which conditions result in hazardous salt concentrations in the root zone, we combined the mass balance equations for salt and water, further assuming a Poisson-distributed daily rainfall and brackish groundwater quality. For the water fluxes (leaching, capillary upflow, and evapotranspiration), we account for osmotic effects of the dissolved salt mass using Van‘t Hoff's law. Root zone salinity depends on salt transport via capillary flux and on evapotranspiration, which concentrates salt in the root zone. Both a wet climate and shallow groundwater lead to wetter root zone conditions, which in combination with periodic rainfall enhances salt removal by leaching. For wet climates, root zone salinity (concentrations) increases as groundwater is more shallow (larger groundwater influence). For dry climates, salinity increases as groundwater is deeper because of a drier root zone and less leaching. For intermediate climates, opposing effects can push the salt balance either way. Root zone salinity increases almost linearly with groundwater salinity. With a simple analytical approximation, maximum concentrations can be related to the mean capillary flow rate, leaching rate, water saturation, and groundwater salinity for different soils, climates, and groundwater depths.

Description: We derive a set of semianalytical solutions for the movement of solutes in immiscible two-phase flow. Our solutions are new in two ways: First, we fully account for the effects of capillary and viscous forces on the transport for arbitrary capillary-hydraulic properties. Second, we fully take hydrodynamic dispersion for the variable two-phase flow field into account. The understanding of immiscible two-phase flow and the simultaneous miscible displacement and mixing of components within a phase is important for many applications, including the location of nonaqueous phase liquids in the subsurface, the design of contaminant cleanup procedures, the sequestration of carbon dioxide, and enhanced oil-recovery techniques. For purely advective transport we combine a known exact solution for the description of immiscible two-phase flow with the method of characteristics for the advective transport equations to obtain solutions that describe cocurrent flow and countercurrent spontaneous imbibition and advective transport in one dimension. We show that for both cases the solute front can be located graphically by a modified Welge tangent. For the advective-dispersive solute transport, we derive approximate analytical solutions by the method of singular perturbation expansion. On the basis of this, we obtain analytical expressions for the growth of the dispersive zone for the case with and without the influence of capillary pressure. We show that for the case of spontaneous countercurrent imbibition the order of magnitude of the growth rate is far smaller than that for the viscous limit. We give some illustrative examples and compare the analytical expressions with numerical reference solutions.

Description: The application of geophysical methods, in particular, electrical resistivity measurements, may be useful for monitoring subsurface contamination. However, interpreting geophysical data without additional data and without considering the associated hydrogeochemical processes is challenging since the geophysical response is sensitive to not only heterogeneity in rock properties but also to the saturation and chemical composition of pore fluids. We present an inverse modeling framework that incorporates the simulation of hydrogeochemical processes and time-lapse electrical resistivity data and apply it to various borehole and cross-borehole data sets collected in 2008 near the S-3 Ponds at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Integrated Field Research Challenge site, where efforts are underway to better understand freshwater recharge and associated contaminant dilution. Our goal is to show that the coupled hydrogeochemical-geophysical modeling framework can be used to (1) develop a model that honors all the available data sets, (2) help understand the response of the geophysical data to subsurface properties and processes at the site, and (3) allow for the estimation of petrophysical parameters needed for interpreting the geophysical data. We present a series of cases involving different data sets and increasingly complex models and find that the approach provides useful information about soil properties, recharge-related transport processes, and the geophysical response. Spatial heterogeneity of the petrophysical model can be described sufficiently with two layers, and its parameters can be estimated concurrently with the hydrogeochemical parameters. For successful application of the approach, the parameters of interest must be sensitive to the available data, and the experimental conditions must be carefully modeled.

Description: We explore selected aspects of J.-Y. Parlange's contributions to hydrological transport of solutes and sediments, including both the laboratory and field scales. At the laboratory scale, he provided numerous approximations for solute transport accounting for effects of boundary conditions, linear and nonlinear reactions, and means to determine relevant parameters. Theory was extended to the field scale with, on the one hand, the effect of varying surface boundary conditions and, on the other, effects of soil structure heterogeneity. Soil erosion modeling, focusing on the Hairsine-Rose model, was considered in several papers. His main results, which provide highly usable approximations for grain-size class dependent sediment transport and deposition, are described. The connection between solute in the soil and that in overland flow was also investigated by Parlange. His theory on exchange of solutes between these two compartments, and subsequent movement, is presented. Both deterministic and stochastic approaches were considered, with application to microbial transport. Beyond contaminant transport, Parlange's fundamental contributions to the movement of solutes in hypersaline natural environments provided accurate predictions of vapor and liquid movement in desert, agricultural, and anthropogenic fresh-saline interfaces in porous media, providing the foundation for this area of research.

Description: Abstract Earth System Models (ESMs) are essential tools for understanding and predicting global change, but they cannot explicitly resolve hillslope‐scale terrain structures that fundamentally organize water, energy, and biogeochemical stores and fluxes at subgrid scales. Here we bring together hydrologists, Critical Zone scientists, and ESM developers, to explore how hillslope structures may modulate ESM grid‐level water, energy, and biogeochemical fluxes. In contrast to the one‐dimensional (1‐D), 2‐ to 3‐m deep, and free‐draining soil hydrology in most ESM land models, we hypothesize that 3‐D, lateral ridge‐to‐valley flow through shallow and deep paths and insolation contrasts between sunny and shady slopes are the top two globally quantifiable organizers of water and energy (and vegetation) within an ESM grid cell. We hypothesize that these two processes are likely to impact ESM predictions where (and when) water and/or energy are limiting. We further hypothesize that, if implemented in ESM land models, these processes will increase simulated continental water storage and residence time, buffering terrestrial ecosystems against seasonal and interannual droughts. We explore efficient ways to capture these mechanisms in ESMs and identify critical knowledge gaps preventing us from scaling up hillslope to global processes. One such gap is our extremely limited knowledge of the subsurface, where water is stored (supporting vegetation) and released to stream baseflow (supporting aquatic ecosystems). We conclude with a set of organizing hypotheses and a call for global syntheses activities and model experiments to assess the impact of hillslope hydrology on global change predictions.

Description: Abstract Observatory‐scale data collection efforts allow unprecedented opportunities for integrative, multidisciplinary investigations in large, complex watersheds which can affect management decisions and policy. Through the National Science Foundation‐funded REACH (REsilience under Accelerated CHange) project, in collaboration with the Intensively Managed Landscapes‐Critical Zone Observatory, we have collected a series of multidisciplinary datasets throughout the Minnesota River Basin in south‐central Minnesota, USA, a 43,400 km2 tributary to the Upper Mississippi River. Post‐glacial incision within the Minnesota River valley created an erosional landscape highly responsive to hydrologic change, allowing for transdisciplinary research into the complex cascade of environmental changes that occur due to hydrology and land use alterations from intensive agricultural management and climate change. Datasets collected include water chemistry and biogeochemical data; geochemical fingerprinting of major sediment sources; high resolution monitoring of river bluff erosion; and repeat channel cross‐sectional and bathymetry data following major floods. The data collection efforts led to development of a series of integrative reduced complexity models that provide deeper insight into how water, sediment, and nutrients route and transform through a large channel network and respond to change. These models represent the culmination of efforts to integrate interdisciplinary datasets and science to gain new insights into watershed‐scale processes in order to advance management and decision making. The purpose of this paper is to present a synthesis of the data sets and models, disseminate them to the community for further research, and identify mechanisms used to expand the temporal and spatial extent of short‐term observatory‐scale data collection efforts.

Description: A meta-analysis data-driven approach is developed to represent the soil evaporative efficiency (SEE) defined as the ratio of actual to potential soil evaporation. The new model is tested across a bare soil database composed of more than 30 sites around the world, a clay fraction range of 0.02-0.56, a sand fraction range of 0.05-0.92, and about 30,000 acquisition times. SEE is modeled using a soil resistance ( r ss ) formulation based on surface soil moisture ( θ ) and two resistance parameters r ss,ref and θ efolding . The data-driven approach aims to express both parameters as a function of observable data including meteorological forcing, cut-off soil moisture value θ 1/2 at which SEE=0.5, and first derivative of SEE at θ 1/2 , named . An analytical relationship between ( r ss,ref ; θ efolding ) and ( θ 1/2 ; ) is first built by running a soil energy balance model for two extreme conditions with r ss = 0 and r ss ∼ ∞ using meteorological forcing solely, and by approaching the middle point from the two (wet and dry) references points. Two different methods are then investigated to estimate the pair ( θ 1/2 ; ) either from the time series of SEE and θ observations for a given site, or using the soil texture information for all sites. The first method is based on an algorithm specifically designed to accomodate for strongly nonlinear SEE( θ ) relationships and potentially large random deviations of observed SEE from the mean observed SEE( θ ). The second method parameterizes θ 1/2 as a multilinear regression of clay and sand percentages, and sets to a constant mean value for all sites. The new model significantly outperformed the evaporation modules of ISBA (Interaction Sol-Biosphére-Atmosphére), H-TESSEL (Hydrology-Tiled ECMWF Scheme for Surface Exchange over Land), and CLM (Community Land Model). It has potential for integration in various land-surface schemes, and real calibration capabilities using combined thermal and microwave remote sensing data. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Groundwater discharge into a seepage lake was investigated by combining flux measurements, hydrochemical tracers, geological information and a telescopic modelling approach using first two-dimensional (2D) regional then 2D local flow and flow path models. Discharge measurements and hydrochemical tracers supplement each other. Discharge measurements yield flux estimates, but rarely provide information about the origin and flow path of the water. Hydrochemical tracers may reveal the origin and flow path of the water, but rarely provide any information about the flux. While aquifer interacting with the lake remained under seemingly steady state conditions across seasons, a high spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the discharge to the lake was observed. The results showed that part of the groundwater flowing from the west passes beneath the lake and discharges at the eastern shore, where groundwater springs and high discharge zones (HDZs) are observed at the lake bottom and at seepage faces adjacent to the lake. In the 2D cross-section, surface runoff from the seepage faces delivers 64% of the total groundwater inputs to the lake, and a 2 m wide offshore HDZ delivers 13%. Presence of HDZs may control nutrient fluxes to the lake. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.