ALBERT

Description: Watershed managers are challenged by the need for predictive temperature models with sufficient accuracy and geographic breadth for practical use. We described thermal regimes of New England rivers and streams based on a reduced set of metrics for the May to September growing season (July or August median temperature, diurnal rate of change, and magnitude and timing of growing season maximum) chosen through principal component analysis of 78 candidate metrics. We then developed and assessed spatial statistical models for each of these metrics, incorporating spatial autocorrelation based on both distance along the flow network and Euclidean distance between points. Calculation of spatial autocorrelation based on travel or retention time in place of network distance yielded tighter-fitting Torgegrams with less scatter but did not improve overall model prediction accuracy. We predicted monthly median July or August stream temperatures as a function of median air temperature, estimated urban heat island effect, shaded solar radiation, main channel slope, watershed storage (percent lake and wetland area), percent coarse-grained surficial deposits, and presence or maximum depth of a lake immediately upstream, with an overall root-mean-square prediction error of 1.4 and 1.5 ○ C, respectively. Growing season maximum water temperature varied as a function of air temperature, local channel slope, shaded August solar radiation, imperviousness, and watershed storage. Predictive models for July or August daily range, maximum daily rate of change, and timing of growing season maximum were statistically significant but explained a much lower proportion of variance than the above models (5-14% of total) . This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Spontaneous counter-current imbibition into a finite porous medium is an important physical mechanism for many applications, included but not limited to irrigation, CO 2 storage and oil recovery. Symmetry considerations that are often valid in fractured porous media allow us to study the process in a one-dimensional domain. In 1D, the onset of imbibition can be captured by self-similar solutions and the imbibed volume scales with . At later times, the imbibition rate decreases and the finite size of the medium has to be taken into account. This requires numerical solutions. Here, we present a new approach to approximate the whole imbibition process semi-analytically. While the onset is captured by a semi-analytical solution. We also provide an a priori estimate of the time until which the imbibed volume scales with . This time is significantly longer than the time it takes until the imbibition front reaches the model boundary. The remainder of the imbibition process is obtained from a self-similarity solution. We test our approach against numerical solutions that employ parametrizations relevant for oil recovery and CO 2 sequestration. We show that this concept improves common first order approaches that heavily underestimate early-time behaviour and note that it can be readily included into dual porosity models. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Water extraction for anthropogenic use has become a major flux in the hydrological cycle. With increasing demand for water and challenges supplying it in the face of climate change, there is a pressing need to better understand connections between human populations, climate, water extraction, water use, and its impacts. To understand these connections, we collected and analyzed stable isotopic ratios of more than 800 urban tap water samples in a series of semiannual water surveys (spring and fall, 2013 to 2015) across the Salt Lake Valley (SLV) of northern Utah. Consistent with previous work, we found that mean tap water had a lower 2 H and 18 O concentration than local precipitation, highlighting the importance of nearby montane winter precipitation as source water for the region. However, we observed strong and structured spatiotemporal variation in tap water isotopic compositions across the region which we attribute to complex distribution systems, varying water management practices and multiple sources used across the valley. Water from different sources was not used uniformly throughout the area and we identified significant correlation between water source and demographic parameters including population and income. Isotopic mass balance indicated significant inter- and intra-annual variability in water losses within the distribution network due to evaporation from surface water resources supplying the SLV. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of isotopes as an indicator of water management strategies and climate impacts within regional urban water systems, with potential utility for monitoring, regulation, forensic and a range of water resource research. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: As the prospect for more frequent and severe extreme weather events gains scientific support, many nations are evaluating mitigation and adaptation options. Insurance and home retrofits could reduce household welfare losses due to flood events. Yet, even after disasters, households often fail to take risk mitigation actions. This paper presents the first randomized field experiment that tests the effect of information provision on household uptake of flood insurance and home retrofits. A sample of 364 flood-prone households in Bangkok was randomly split into treatment and control groups. The treatment group received practical details on home retrofits and flood insurance as well as social information regarding the insurance purchase decisions of peers. Results indicate that the information intervention increased insurance purchases by about five percentage points, while no effect was detected for home retrofits. This effect is nearly equal to the increase in uptake that the national insurance program in Thailand has achieved through all other means since its establishment in 2012. If scaled up to include all uninsured, flood-prone households in Bangkok, nearly 70,000 additional households could be insured. The results suggest that well-designed information interventions could increase uptake of flood insurance, without additional premium subsidies or mandates. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The need to understand potential climate impacts and feedbacks in Arctic regions has prompted recent interest in modeling of permafrost dynamics in a warming climate. A new fine-scale integrated surface/subsurface thermal hydrology modeling capability is described and demonstrated in proof-of-concept simulations. The new modeling capability combines a surface energy balance model with recently developed three-dimensional subsurface thermal hydrology models and new models for nonisothermal surface water flows and snow distribution in the microtopography. Surface water flows are modeled using the diffusion wave equation extended to include energy transport and phase change of ponded water. Variation of snow depth in the microtopography, physically the result of wind scour, is modeled phenomenologically with a diffusion wave equation. The multiple surface and subsurface processes are implemented by leveraging highly parallel community software. Fully integrated thermal hydrology simulations on the tilted open book catchment, an important test case for integrated surface/subsurface flow modeling, are presented. Fine-scale 100-year projections of the integrated permafrost thermal hydrological system on an ice wedge polygon at Barrow Alaska in a warming climate are also presented. These simulations demonstrate the feasibility of microtopography-resolving, process-rich simulations as a tool to help understand possible future evolution of the carbon-rich Arctic tundra in a warming climate. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: A general probabilistic prediction network is proposed for hydrological drought examination and environmental flow assessment. This network consists of three major components. First, we present the joint streamflow drought indicator (JSDI) to describe the hydrological dryness/wetness conditions. The JSDI is established based on a high-dimensional multivariate probabilistic model. In the second part, a drought-based environmental flow assessment method is introduced, which provides dynamic risk-based information about how much flow (the environmental flow target) is required for drought recovery and its likelihood under different hydrological drought initial situations. The final part involves estimating the conditional probability of achieving the required environmental flow under different precipitation scenarios according to the joint dependence structure between streamflow and precipitation. Three watersheds from different countries (Germany, China, and United States) with varying sizes from small to large were used to examine the usefulness of this network. The results show that the JSDI can provide an assessment of overall hydrological dryness/wetness conditions and performs well in identifying both drought onset and persistence. This network also allows quantitative prediction of targeted environmental flow required for hydrological drought recovery and estimation of the corresponding likelihood. Moreover, the results confirm that the general network can estimate the conditional probability associated with the required flow under different precipitation scenarios. The presented methodology offers a promising tool for water supply planning and management and for drought-based environmental flow assessment. The network has no restrictions that would prevent it from being applied to other basins worldwide. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The repository concept for geological disposal of spent nuclear fuel in Sweden and Finland is planned to be constructed in sparsely fractured crystalline bedrock and with an engineered bentonite buffer to embed the waste canisters. An important stage in such a deep repository is the post-closure phase following the deposition and the backfilling operations when the initially unsaturated buffer material gets hydrated by the groundwater delivered by the natural bedrock. We use numerical simulations to interpret observations on buffer wetting gathered during an in situ campaign, the Bentonite Rock Interaction Experiment, in which unsaturated bentonite columns were introduced into deposition holes in the floor of a 417 m deep tunnel at the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in Sweden. Our objectives are to assess the performance of state-of-the-art flow models in reproducing the buffer wetting process and to investigate to which extent dependable predictions of buffer wetting times and saturation patterns can be made based on information collected prior to buffer insertion. This would be important for preventing insertion into unsuitable bedrock environments. Field data and modeling results indicate the development of a de-saturated zone in the rock and show that in most cases, the presence or absence of fractures and flow heterogeneity are more important factors for correct wetting predictions than the total inflow. For instance, for an equal open-hole inflow value, homogeneous inflow yields much more rapid buffer wetting than cases where fractures are represented explicitly thus creating heterogeneous inflow distributions. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Many aquifers that are highly contaminated by arsenic in South and Southeast Asia are in the floodplains of large river networks. Under natural conditions, these aquifers would discharge into nearby rivers; however large-scale groundwater pumping has reversed the flow in some areas so that rivers now recharge aquifers. At a field site near Hanoi Vietnam, we find river water recharging the aquifer becomes high in arsenic, reaching concentrations above 1000 μg/L, within the upper meter of recently (〈 ∼10 yrs ) deposited riverbed sediments as it is drawn into a heavily pumped aquifer along the Red River. Groundwater arsenic concentrations in aquifers adjacent to the river are largely controlled by river geomorphology. High (〉 50 μg/L) aqueous arsenic concentrations are found in aquifer regions adjacent to zones where the river has recently deposited sediment and low arsenic concentrations are found in aquifer regions adjacent to erosional zones. High arsenic concentrations are even found adjacent to a depositional river reach in a Pleistocene aquifer, a type of aquifer sediment which generally hosts low arsenic water. Using geochemical and isotopic data we estimate the in-situ rate of arsenic release from riverbed sediments to be up to 1000 times the rates calculated on inland aquifer sediments in Vietnam. Geochemical data for riverbed porewater conditions indicate that the reduction of reactive, poorly crystalline iron oxides controls arsenic release. We suggest that aquifers in these regions may be susceptible to further arsenic contamination where riverine recharge drawn into aquifers by extensive groundwater pumping flows through recently deposited river sediments before entering the aquifer. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Training image-based geostatistical methods are increasingly popular in groundwater hydrology even if existing algorithms present limitations that often make real-world applications difficult. These limitations include a computational cost that can be prohibitive for high-resolution 3D applications, the presence of visual artifacts in the model realizations, and a low variability between model realizations due to the limited pool of patterns available in a finite-size training image. In this paper, we address these issues by proposing an iterative patch-based algorithm which adapts a graph cuts methodology that is widely used in computer graphics. Our adapted graph cuts method optimally cuts patches of pixel values borrowed from the training image and assembles them successively, each time accounting for the information of previously stitched patches. The initial simulation result might display artifacts, which are identified as regions of high cost. These artifacts are reduced by iteratively placing new patches in high-cost regions. In contrast to most patch-based algorithms, the proposed scheme can also efficiently address point conditioning. An advantage of the method is that the cut process results in the creation of new patterns that are not present in the training image, thereby increasing pattern variability. To quantify this effect, a new measure of variability is developed, the merging index, quantifies the pattern variability in the realizations with respect to the training image. A series of sensitivity analyses demonstrates the stability of the proposed graph cuts approach, which produces satisfying simulations for a wide range of parameters values. Applications to 2D and 3D cases are compared to state-of-the-art multiple-point methods. The results show that the proposed approach obtains significant speedups and increases variability between realizations. Connectivity functions applied to 2D models transport simulations in 3D models are used to demonstrate that pattern continuity is preserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: ABSTRACT We investigate the potential of integrating desalination to existing reservoir systems to mitigate supply uncertainty. Desalinated seawater and wastewater are relatively reliable but expensive. Water from natural resources like reservoirs is generally cheaper but climate sensitive. We propose combining the operation of a reservoir, and seawater and wastewater desalination plants for an overall system that is less vulnerable to scarcity and uncertainty, while constraining total cost. The joint system is modeled as a multi-objective optimization problem with the double objectives of minimizing risk and vulnerability, subject to a minimum limit on resilience. The joint model is applied to two cases, one based on the climate and demands of a location in India and the other of a location in California. The results for the Indian case indicate it possible for the joint system to reduce risk and vulnerability to zero given a budget increase of 20-120% under current climate conditions and 30-150% under projected future conditions. For the Californian case, this would require budget increases of 20-80% and 30-140% under current and future conditions respectively. Further, our analysis shows a two-way interaction between the reservoir and desalination plants where the optimal operation of the former is just as much affected by the latter as the latter by the former. This highlights the importance of an integrated management approach. This study contributes to a greater quantitative understanding of desalination as a redundancy measure for adapting water supply infrastructures for a future of greater scarcity and uncertainty. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The cosmic-ray neutron method was developed for intermediate-scale soil moisture detection, but may potentially be used for other hydrological applications. The neutron signal of different hydrogen pools is poorly understood and separating them is difficult based on neutron measurements alone. Including neutron transport modeling may accommodate this shortcoming. However, measured and modeled neutrons are not directly comparable. Neither the scale nor energy ranges are equivalent, and the exact neutron energy sensitivity of the detectors is unknown. Here, a methodology to enable comparability of the measured and modeled neutrons is presented. The usual cosmic-ray soil moisture detector measures moderated neutrons by means of a proportional counter surrounded by plastic, making it sensitive to epithermal neutrons. However, that configuration allows for some thermal neutrons to be measured. The thermal contribution can be removed by surrounding the plastic with a layer of cadmium, which absorbs neutrons with energies below 0.5 eV. Likewise, cadmium-shielding of a bare detector allows for estimating the epithermal contribution. First, the cadmium difference method is used to determine the fraction of thermal and epithermal neutrons measured by the bare and plastic-shielded detectors, respectively. The cadmium difference method results in linear correction models for measurements by the two detectors, and has the greatest impact on the neutron intensity measured by the moderated detector at the ground surface. Next, conversion factors are obtained relating measured and modeled neutron intensities. Finally, the methodology is tested by modeling the neutron profiles at an agricultural field site and satisfactory agreement to measurements is found. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Debris flows are a typical hazard on steep slopes after wildfire, but unlike debris flows that mobilize from landslides, most post-wildfire debris flows are generated from water runoff. The majority of existing debris-flow modeling has focused on landslide-triggered debris flows. In this study we explore the potential for using process-based rainfall-runoff models to simulate the timing of water flow and runoff-generated debris flows in recently burned areas. Two different spatially distributed hydrologic models with differing levels of complexity were used: the full shallow water equations and the kinematic wave approximation. Model parameter values were calibrated in two different watersheds, spanning two orders of magnitude in drainage area. These watersheds were affected by the 2009 Station Fire in the San Gabriel Mountains, CA, USA. Input data for the numerical models were constrained by time series of soil moisture, flow stage, and rainfall collected at field sites, as well as high-resolution lidar-derived digital elevation models. The calibrated parameters were used to model a third watershed in the burn area, and the results show a good match with observed timing of flow peaks. The calibrated roughness parameter (Manning's $n$) was generally higher when using the kinematic wave approximation relative to the shallow water equations, and decreased with increasing spatial scale. The calibrated effective watershed hydraulic conductivity was low for both models, even for storms occurring several months after the fire, suggesting that wildfire-induced changes to soil-water infiltration were retained throughout that time. Overall the two model simulations were quite similar suggesting that a kinematic wave model, which is simpler and more computationally efficient, is a suitable approach for predicting flood and debris flow timing in steep, burned watersheds. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: We analyze the probability distribution of the hazard attenuation factor for a non-carcinogenic reactive compound captured by a well in heterogeneous porous formations. The hazard attenuation factor is defined as the ratio between the hazard index HI at a detection well and at the source. Heterogeneity of the aquifer is represented through the Multi-Indicator Model (a collection of blocks of independent permeability) while flow and transport are solved by the means of the Self-Consistent Approach, that is able to deal with any degree of heterogeneity. Due to formation heterogeneity, HI is a random variable and similar for hazard attenuation index. The latter can be fully characterized by its cumulative distribution function (CDF), which in turn can be related to the statistics of the travel time of solute particles, from the source to the detection well. The approach is applied to the case of a solute which undergoes decay and a well with a screen much smaller than the correlation scale of hydraulic conductivity. The results show that the probability of exceeding a given acceptable threshold of the hazard index is significantly affected by the level of heterogeneity comparable to the one observed for the MADE site, and the distance between the source and the well. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Transit times through hydrologic systems vary in time, but the nature of that variability is not well understood. Transit times variability was investigated in a 1 m 3 sloping lysimeter, representing a simplified model of a hillslope receiving periodic rainfall events for 28 days. Tracer tests were conducted using an experimental protocol that allows time-variable transit time distributions (TTDs) to be calculated from data. Observed TTDs varied with the storage state of the system, and the history of inflows and outflows. We propose that the observed time variability of the TTDs can be decomposed into two parts: ‘internal' variability associated with changes in the arrangement of, and partitioning between, flow pathways; and ‘external' variability driven by fluctuations in the flow rate along all flow pathways. These concepts can be defined quantitatively in terms of rank StorAge Selection (rSAS) functions, which is a theory describing lumped transport dynamics. Internal variability is associated with temporal variability in the rSAS function, while external is not. The rSAS function variability was characterized by an ‘inverse storage effect', whereby younger water is released in greater proportion under wetter conditions than drier. We hypothesize that this effect is caused by the rapid mobilization of water in the unsaturated zone by the rising water table. Common approximations used to model transport dynamics that neglect internal variability were unable to reproduce the observed breakthrough curves accurately. This suggests that internal variability can play an important role in hydrologic transport dynamics, with implications for field data interpretation and modeling. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: In real water distribution networks (WDNs) are present thousands nodes and optimal placement of pressure and flow observations is a relevant issue for different management tasks. The planning of pressure observations in terms of spatial distribution and number is named sampling design and it was faced considering model calibration. Nowadays, the design of system monitoring is a relevant issue for water utilities e.g. in order to manage background leakages, to detect anomalies and bursts, to guarantee service quality, etc. In recent years, the optimal location of flow observations related to design of optimal district metering areas (DMAs) and leakage management purposes has been faced considering optimal network segmentation and the modularity index using a multi-objective strategy. Optimal network segmentation is the basis to identify network modules by means of optimal conceptual cuts, which are the candidate locations of closed gates or flow meters creating the DMAs. Starting from the WDN-oriented modularity index, as a metric for WDN segmentation, this paper proposes a new way to perform the sampling design , i.e. the optimal location of pressure meters , using newly developed sampling-oriented modularity index. The strategy optimizes the pressure monitoring system mainly based on network topology and weights assigned to pipes according to the specific technical tasks. A multi-objective optimization minimizes the cost of pressure meters while maximizing the sampling-oriented modularity index. The methodology is presented and discussed using the Apulian and Exnet networks. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: In this paper, a methodology is developed to identify consistency of rating curve data based on a quality analysis of model results. This methodology, called Bidirectional Reach (BReach), evaluates results of a rating curve model with randomly sampled parameter sets in each observation. The combination of a parameter set and an observation is classified as non-acceptable if the deviation between the accompanying model result and the measurement exceeds observational uncertainty. Based on this classification, conditions for satisfactory behavior of a model in a sequence of observations are defined. Subsequently, a parameter set is evaluated in a data point by assessing the span for which it behaves satisfactory in the direction of the previous (or following) chronologically sorted observations. This is repeated for all sampled parameter sets and results are aggregated by indicating the endpoint of the largest span, called the maximum left (right) reach. This temporal reach should not be confused with a spatial reach (indicating a part of a river). The same procedure is followed for each data point and for different definitions of satisfactory behavior. Results of this analysis enable the detection of changes in data consistency. The methodology is validated with observed data and various synthetic stage-discharge data sets and proves to be a robust technique to investigate temporal consistency of rating curve data. It provides satisfying results despite of low data availability, errors in the estimated observational uncertainty and a rating curve model that is known to cover only a limited part of the observations. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: With population growth, increasing water demands and climate change the need to understand the current and future pathways to water security is becoming more pressing. To contribute to addressing this challenge, we examine the link between water stress and society through socio-hydrological modeling. We conceptualize the interactions between an agricultural society with its environment in a stylized way. We apply the model to the case of the ancient Maya, a population that experienced a peak during the Classic Period (AD 600-830) and then declined during the ninth century. The hypothesis that modest drought periods played a major role in the society's collapse is explored. Simulating plausible feedbacks between water and society we show that a modest reduction in rainfall may lead to an 80% population collapse.Population density and crop sensitivity to droughts, however, may play an equally important role. The simulations indicate that construction of reservoirs results in less frequent drought impacts, but if the reservoirs run dry, drought impact may be more severe and the population drop may be larger. Index terms: 1812 Drought (4303) 1834 Human impacts (4323) 4330 Vulnerability. Keywords: socio-hydrology, Ancient Maya, drought, vulnerability. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Reliable characterization of hydraulic parameters is important for the understanding of groundwater flow and solute transport. The normal-score ensemble Kalman filter (NS-EnKF) has proven to be an effective inverse method for the characterization of non-Gaussian hydraulic conductivities by assimilating transient piezometric head data, or solute concentration data. Groundwater temperature, an easily captured state variable, has not drawn much attention as an additional state variable useful for the characterization of aquifer parameters. In this work, we jointly estimate non-Gaussian aquifer parameters (hydraulic conductivities and porosities) by assimilating three kinds of state variables (piezometric head, solute concentration, and groundwater temperature) using the NS-EnKF. A synthetic example including seven tests is designed, and used to evaluate the ability to characterize hydraulic conductivity and porosity in a non-Gaussian setting by assimilating different numbers and types of state variables. The results show that characterization of aquifer parameters can be improved by assimilating groundwater temperature data and that the main patters of the non-Gaussian reference fields can be retrieved with more accuracy and higher precision if multiple state variables are assimilated. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Numerical morphological modelling of braided rivers, using a physics-based approach, is increasingly used as a technique to explore controls on river pattern and, from an applied perspective, to simulate the impact of channel modifications. This paper assesses a depth averaged non-uniform sediment model (Delft3D) to predict the morphodynamics of a 2.5 km long reach of the braided Rees River, New Zealand, during a single high-flow event. Evaluation of model performance primarily focused upon using high-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of Difference, derived from a fusion of terrestrial laser scanning and optical empirical bathymetric mapping, to compare observed and predicted patterns of erosion and deposition, and reach scale sediment budgets. For the calibrated model, this was supplemented with planform metrics (e.g. braiding intensity). Extensive sensitivity analysis of model functions and parameters was executed, including consideration of numerical scheme for bedload component calculations, hydraulics, bed composition, bedload transport and bed slope effects, bank erosion and frequency of calculations. Total predicted volumes of erosion and deposition corresponded well to those observed. The difference between predicted and observed volumes of erosion was less than the factor of two that characterises the accuracy of the Gaeuman et al. bedload transport formula. Grain size distributions were best represented using two-phi intervals. For unsteady flows, results were sensitive to the morphological time scale factor. The approach of comparing observed and predicted morphological sediment budgets shows the value of using natural experiment datasets for model testing. Sensitivity results are transferable to guide Delft3D applications to other rivers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Three-dimensional numerical simulations are used to provide insight into the behavior of methane as it migrates from a leaky decommissioned hydrocarbon well into a shallow aquifer. The conceptual model includes gas-phase migration from a leaky well, dissolution into groundwater, advective-dispersive transport and biodegradation of the dissolved methane plume. Gas-phase migration is simulated using the DuMu x multi-phase simulator, while transport and fate of the dissolved phase is simulated using the BIONAPL/3D reactive transport model. Methane behavior is simulated for two conceptual models: first in a shallow confined aquifer containing a decommissioned leaky well based on a monitored field site near Lindbergh, Alberta, Canada, and secondly on a representative unconfined aquifer based loosely on the Borden, Ontario, field site. The simulations show that the Lindbergh site confined aquifer data are generally consistent with a 2-year methane leak of 2 to 20 m 3 /d, assuming anaerobic (sulfate-reducing) methane oxidation and with maximum oxidation rates of 1 × 10 − 5 to 1 × 10 − 3 kg/m 3 /d. Under the highest oxidation rate, dissolved methane decreased from solubility (110 mg/L) to the threshold concentration of 10 mg/L within 5 years. In the unconfined case with the same leakage rate, including both aerobic and anaerobic methane oxidation, the methane plume was less extensive compared to the confined aquifer scenarios. Unconfined aquifers may therefore be less vulnerable to impacts from methane leaks along decommissioned wells. At other potential leakage sites, site-specific data on the natural background geochemistry would be necessary to make reliable predictions on the fate of methane in groundwater. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: ABSTRACT Two different methods are currently used for measuring interfacial areas between immiscible fluids within 3-D porous media, high-resolution microtomographic imaging and interfacial partitioning tracer tests (IPTT). Both methods were used in this study to measure non-wetting/wetting interfacial areas for a natural sand. The microtomographic imaging was conducted on the same packed columns that were used for the IPTTs. This is in contrast to prior studies comparing the two methods, for which in all cases different samples were used for the two methods. In addition, the columns were imaged before and after the IPTTs to evaluate the potential impacts of the tracer solution on fluid configuration and attendant interfacial area. The interfacial areas measured using IPTT are ∼5 times larger than the microtomographic-measured values, which is consistent with previous work. Analysis of the image data revealed no significant impact of the tracer solution on NAPL configuration or interfacial area. Other potential sources of error were evaluated, and all were demonstrated to be insignificant. The disparity in measured interfacial areas between the two methods is attributed to the limitation of the microtomography method to characterize interfacial area associated with microscopic surface roughness due to resolution constraints. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Honami and monami waves are caused by large-scale coherent vortex structures which form in shear layers generated by canopies. In order to reach new insights on the onset of such waves, the instability of these shear layers is studied. Two different approach are used. In the first approach the presence of the canopy is modeled via a drag coefficient, taken to vary along the canopy as by experimental indications. The second approach considers the canopy as a porous medium and different governing equations for the fluid flow are deduced. In this second case the anisotropy of the canopy, composed by rigid cylindrical elements, is accounted for via an apparent permeability tensor. The results obtained with the latter approach approximate better experimental correlations for the synchronous oscillations of the canopy. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: This paper presents the fundamental theory and laboratory test results on a new device that is deployed in boreholes in fractured rock aquifers to characterize vertical distributions of water and contaminant fluxes, aquifer hydraulic properties, and fracture network properties (e.g., active fracture density and orientation). The device, a fractured rock passive flux meter (FRPFM), consists of an inflatable core assembled with upper and lower packers that isolate the zone of interest from vertical gradients within the borehole. The outer layer of the core consists of an elastic fabric mesh equilibrated with a visible dye which is used to provide visual indications of active fractures and measures of fracture location, orientation, groundwater flux, and the direction of that flux. Beneath the outer layer is a permeable sorbent that is preloaded with known amounts of water soluble tracers which are eluted at rates proportional to groundwater flow. This sorbent also captures target contaminants present in intercepted groundwater. The mass of contaminant sorbed is used to quantify cumulative contaminant flux; whereas, the mass fractions of resident tracers lost are used to provide measures of water flux. In this paper, the FRPFM is bench tested over a range of fracture velocities (2-20 m/day) using a single fracture flow apparatus (fracture aperture = 0.5 mm). Test results show a discoloration in visible dye corresponding to the location of the active fracture. The geometry of the discoloration can be used to discern fracture orientation as well as direction and magnitude of flow in the fracture. Average contaminant fluxes were measured within 16% and water fluxes within 25% of known imposed fluxes. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Groundwater quality is a concern in alluvial aquifers that underlie agricultural areas, such as in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Shallow domestic wells (less than 150 m deep) in agricultural areas are often contaminated by nitrate. Agricultural and rural nitrate sources include dairy manure, synthetic fertilizers, and septic waste. Knowledge of the relative proportion that each of these sources contributes to nitrate concentration in individual wells can aid future regulatory and land management decisions. We show that nitrogen and oxygen isotopes of nitrate, boron isotopes, and iodine concentrations are a useful, novel combination of groundwater tracers to differentiate between manure, fertilizers, septic waste, and natural sources of nitrate. Furthermore, in this work, we develop a new Bayesian mixing model in which these isotopic and elemental tracers were used to estimate the probability distribution of the fractional contributions of manure, fertilizers, septic waste, and natural sources to the nitrate concentration found in an individual well. The approach was applied to 56 nitrate-impacted private domestic wells located in the San Joaquin Valley. Model analysis found that some domestic wells were clearly dominated by the manure source and suggests evidence for majority contributions from either the septic or fertilizer source for other wells. But, predictions of fractional contributions for septic and fertilizer sources were often of similar magnitude, perhaps because modeled uncertainty about the fraction of each was large. For validation of the Bayesian model, fractional estimates were compared to surrounding landuse and estimated source contributions were broadly consistent with nearby landuse types. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: We use a multiphase level set approach to simulate capillary-controlled motions of isolated fluid ganglia surrounded by two other continuous fluids (i.e., double displacements) during three-phase flow on 3-D porous rock geometries. Double displacements and three-phase snap-off mechanisms are closely related. Water snap-off on gas/oil interfaces can initiate double displacements that mobilize isolated oil ganglia in water-wet rock, but it can also terminate ongoing double displacements and trap oil in water. The multiphase level set approach allows for calculating the evolution of disconnected-phase pressure during the motion. In the events of pore filling by double displacement of oil ganglia, and water snap-off on gas/oil interfaces, we find that the local gas/oil capillary pressure drops, while local oil/water capillary pressure increases, by a similar magnitude as observed for the capillary pressure drops during single-pore filling events in dynamic pore-scale experiments of two-phase drainage. We also find that oil ganglia decrease their surface area, and achieve a more compact shape, when the gas/oil interfacial area decreases at the expense of increased oil/water interfacial area during double displacement. By comparison with similar two-phase gas/water simulations, we find that the level of the gas/water capillary pressure curves, including hysteresis loops, are smaller when a mobile, disconnected oil is present, which suggests double displacement of oil is more favorable than direct gas/water displacement. We also present cases in which phase trapping occurred in the three-phase simulations, but not in the corresponding two-phase simulations, supporting the view that more trapping is possible in three-phase flow. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: We address the problem of stochastic simulation of soil particle-size curves (PSCs) in heterogeneous aquifer systems. Unlike traditional approaches that focus solely on a few selected features of PSCs (e.g., selected quantiles), our approach considers the entire particle size curves and can optionally include conditioning on available data. We rely on our prior work [Menafoglio et al, 2014,2015] to model PSCs as cumulative distribution functions, and interpret their density functions as functional compositions. We thus approximate the latter through an expansion over an appropriate basis of functions. This enables us to (a) effectively deal with the data dimensionality and constraints, and (b) to develop a simulation method for PSCs based upon a suitable and well defined projection procedure. The new theoretical framework allows representing and reproducing the complete information content embedded in PSC data. As a first field application, we demonstrate the quality of unconditional and conditional simulations obtained with our methodology by considering a set of particle-size curves collected within a shallow alluvial aquifer in the Neckar river valley, Germany. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The narrow region of soil around roots, the so-called rhizosphere, defers in its hydraulic properties from the bulk soil. The rhizosphere hydraulic properties primarily depend on the drying and wetting rate of mucilage, a polymeric gel exuded by plant roots. Under equilibrium conditions mucilage increases the water holding capacity. Upon drying mucilage turns hydrophobic and makes the rhizosphere temporarily water repellent. There are several models of root water uptake, from analytical models of water flow to a single root to complex numerical models that consider the root architecture. Most of these models, however, do not account for the specific hydraulic properties of the rhizosphere. Here we describe a single-root model that includes the altered hydraulic properties of the rhizosphere due to mucilage exudation. We use the model to reproduce existing experiments reporting unexpected and puzzling hysteresis in the rhizosphere, which could not be explained under the assumption of homogeneous hydraulic properties. In our model the hydraulic properties depend on the concentration of mucilage. This enables a continuous transition from the bulk soil to the root surface. We assumed that: (a) mucilage increases the water holding capacity in equilibrium conditions, (b) hydrophobicity, swelling and shrinking of mucilage cause a non-equilibrium relation between water content and water potential and (c) mucilage reduces the mobility of water molecules in the liquid phase resulting in a lower hydraulic conductivity at a given water content. Our model reproduces well the experiments and suggests that mucilage softens drought stress in plants during severe drying events. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Interfacial areas between nonwetting-wetting (NW-W) liquids in natural porous media were measured using a modified version of the interfacial partitioning tracer test (IPTT) method that employed simultaneous two-phase flow conditions, which allowed measurement at NW saturations higher than trapped residual saturation. Measurements were conducted over a range of saturations for a well-sorted quartz sand under three wetting scenarios of primary drainage (PD), secondary imbibition (SI), and secondary drainage (SD). Limited sets of experiments were also conducted for a model glass-bead medium and for a soil. The measured interfacial areas were compared to interfacial areas measured using the standard IPTT method for liquid-liquid systems, which employs residual NW saturations. In addition, the theoretical maximum interfacial areas estimated from the measured data are compared to specific solid surface areas measured with the N 2 /BET method and estimated based on geometrical calculations for smooth spheres. Interfacial areas increase linearly with decreasing water saturation over the range of saturations employed. The maximum interfacial areas determined for the glass beads, which have no surface roughness, are 32±4 and 36±5 cm −1 for PD and SI cycles, respectively. The values are similar to the geometric specific solid surface area (31±2 cm −1 ) and the N 2 /BET solid surface area (28±2 cm −1 ). The maximum interfacial areas are 274±38, 235±27, and 581±160 cm −1 for the sand for PD, SI, and SD cycles, respectively, and ∼7625 cm −1 for the soil for PD and SI. The maximum interfacial areas for the sand and soil are significantly larger than the estimated smooth-sphere specific solid surface areas (107±8 cm −1 and 152±8 cm −1 , respectively), but much smaller than the N 2 /BET solid surface area (1387±92 cm −1 and 55224 cm −1 , respectively). The NW-W interfacial areas measured with the two-phase flow method compare well to values measured using the standard IPTT method. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Understanding the influence of attached microbial biomass on water flow in variably saturated soils is crucial for many engineered flow systems. So far, the investigation of the effects of microbial biomass has been mainly limited to water-saturated systems. We have assessed the influence of biofilms on the soil hydraulic properties under variably-saturated conditions. A sandy soil was incubated with Pseudomonas Putida and the hydraulic properties of the incubated soil were determined by a combination of methods. Our results show a stronger soil water retention in the inoculated soil as compared to the control. The increase in volumetric water content reaches approximately 0.015 cm 3 cm −3 but is only moderately correlated with the carbon deficit, a proxy for biofilm quantity, and less with the cell viable counts. The presence of biofilm reduced the saturated hydraulic conductivity of the soil by up to one order of magnitude. Under unsaturated conditions, the hydraulic conductivity was only reduced by a factor of four. This means that relative water conductance in biofilm-affected soils is higher compared to the clean soil at low water contents, and that the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity curve of biofilm-affected soil cannot be predicted by simply scaling the saturated hydraulic conductivity. A flexible parameterization of the soil hydraulic functions accounting for capillary and non-capillary flow was needed to adequately describe the observed properties over the entire wetness range. More research is needed to address the exact flow mechanisms in biofilm-affected, unsaturated soil and how they are related to effective system properties. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: A framework for interpreting transient pumping tests in heterogeneous transmissivity fields is developed to infer the overall geostatistical parameters of the medium without reconstructing the specific heterogeneous structure point wise. The methodology of Radial Coarse Graining is applied to deduce an effective radial description of multi-Gaussian transmissivity. It was used to derive an Effective Well Flow Solution for transient flow conditions including not only the storativity, but also the geometric mean, the variance, and the correlation length of log-transmissivity. This solution is shown to be appropriate to characterize the pumping test drawdown behavior in heterogeneous transmissivity fields making use of ensembles of simulated pumping tests with multiple combinations of statistical parameters. Based on the Effective Well Flow Solution , a method is developed for inferring heterogeneity parameters from transient pumping test drawdown data by inverse estimation. Thereby, the impact of statistical parameters on the drawdown is analyzed, allowing to determine the dependence of reliability of parameter estimates on location and number of measurements. It is shown, that the number of measurements can be reduced compared to steady state pumping tests. Finally, a sampling strategy for single aquifer analysis is developed, which allows to estimate the statistical parameters, in particular variance and correlation length for individual heterogeneous transmissivity fields making use of transient pumping test measurements at multiple locations. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The role of groundwater in sustaining plant transpiration constitutes an important but not well understood aspect of the interactions between groundwater, the land surface, vegetation and the atmosphere. The effect of the hydraulic redistribution (HR) process by plant roots on the interplay between plant transpiration and groundwater dynamics under water-limited climates is investigated by using the Variable Infiltration Capacity Plus (VIC+) land surface model. Numerical experiments, with or without explicitly considering HR, are conducted on soil columns over a range of groundwater table depths (GWTDs) under different vegetative land covers, soil types and precipitation conditions. When HR is not included, this study obtains transpiration – GWTD relationships consistent with those from watershed studies that do not include HR. When HR is included, the transpiration – GWTD relationships are modified. The modification introduced by HR is manifested in the soil moisture of the root zone. The mechanism of HR is explained by detailing the roles of the hydraulically redistributed water, the upward diffusion of soil water and the daytime root uptake. We have found that HR is particularly important in water-limited climates under which plants have high transpiration demand. At the beginning stage of a dry period, HR modulates the severe impacts that climate has on plant transpiration. Only after a prolonged dry period, impacts of HR are lessened when the groundwater table drops below the depth of water uptake by roots and are diminished when plant transpiration is decoupled from groundwater dynamics. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Laboratory measurements of the permeability and spectral induced polarization (SIP) response of samples consisting of unconsolidated sands typical of those found in New Zealand aquifers have been made. After correction of measured formation factors to allow for the fact that some were measured at only one fluid conductivity, predictions of permeability from the grain size ( d ) of the samples are found to agree well with measured values of permeability. The Cole-Cole time constant (derived from the SIP measurements) is found, as expected, to depend upon d 2 , but can be affected by the inclusion of smaller grains in the sample. Measurements made on samples comprising of mixtures of grain sizes show that inclusion in a sample of even 10% of smaller grains can significantly reduce both the Cole-Cole time constant ( τ CC ) and the permeability, and support theoretical derivation of how the permeability of a mixture of grain sizes varies with the content of the mixture. Proposed relationships for using τ CC as a predictor for permeability are tested and found to be crucially dependent on the assumed relationship between the dynamic pore radius and grain size. The inclusion of a multiplicative constant to take account of numerical approximations results in good predictions for the permeability of the samples in this study. It seems unlikely, however, that there is a single global expression for predicting permeability from SIP data for all samples. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Observations of terrestrial water storage (TWS) from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission have a coarse resolution in time (monthly) and space (roughly 150,000 km 2 at mid-latitudes) and vertically integrate all water storage components over land, including soil moisture and groundwater. Data assimilation can be used to horizontally downscale and vertically partition GRACE-TWS observations. This work proposes a variant of existing ensemble-based GRACE-TWS data assimilation schemes. The new algorithm differs in how the analysis increments are computed and applied. Existing schemes correlate the uncertainty in the modeled monthly TWS estimates with errors in the soil moisture profile state variables at a single instant in the month and then apply the increment either at the end of the month or gradually throughout the month. The proposed new scheme first computes increments for each day of the month and then applies the average of those increments at the beginning of the month. The new scheme therefore better reflects sub-monthly variations in TWS errors. The new and existing schemes are investigated here using gridded GRACE-TWS observations. The assimilation results are validated at the monthly time-scale, using in situ measurements of groundwater depth and soil moisture across the US. The new assimilation scheme yields improved (although not in a statistically significant sense) skill metrics for groundwater compared to the open-loop (no assimilation) simulations and compared to the existing assimilation schemes. A smaller impact is seen for surface and root-zone soil moisture, which have a shorter memory and receive smaller increments from TWS assimilation than groundwater. These results motivate future efforts to combine GRACE-TWS observations with observations that are more sensitive to surface soil moisture, such as L-band brightness temperature observations from Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) or Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP). Finally, we demonstrate that the scaling parameters that are applied to the GRACE observations prior to assimilation should be consistent with the land surface model that is used within the assimilation system. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Knowledge of sediment dynamics in rivers is of great importance for various practical purposes. Despite its high relevance in riverine environment processes, the monitoring of sediment rates remains a major and challenging task for both suspended and bedload estimation. While the measurement of suspended load is currently an active area of testing with non-intrusive technologies (optical and acoustic), bedload measurement does not mark a similar progress. This paper describes an innovative combination of measurement techniques and analysis protocols that establishes the proof-of-concept for a promising technique, labeled herein Acoustic Mapping Velocimetry (AMV). The technique estimates bedload rates in rivers developing bedforms using a non-intrusive measurements approach. The raw information for AMV is collected with acoustic multi-beam technology that in turn provides maps of the bathymetry over longitudinal swaths. As long as the acoustic maps can be acquired relatively quickly and the repetition rate for the mapping is commensurate with the movement of the bedforms, successive acoustic maps capture the progression of the bedform movement. Two-dimensional velocity maps associated with the bedform migration are obtained by implementing algorithms typically used in particle image velocimetry to acoustic maps converted in gray-level images. Furthermore, use of the obtained acoustic and velocity maps in conjunction with analytical formulations (e.g., Exner equation) enables estimation of multi-directional bedload rates over the whole imaged area. This paper presents a validation study of the AMV technique using a set of laboratory experiments. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Glacierized high-mountainous catchments are often the water towers for downstream region and modeling these remote areas are often the only available tool for the assessment of water resources availability. Nevertheless, data scarcity affects different aspects of hydrological modeling in such mountainous glacierized basins. On the example of poorly gauged glacierized catchment in Central Asia we examined the effects of input discretization, model complexity and calibration strategy on model performance. The study was conducted with the GSM-Socont model driven with climatic input from the corrected High Asia Reanalysis data set of two different discretizations. We analyze the effects of the use of long-term glacier volume loss, snow cover images and interior runoff as an additional calibration data. In glacierized catchments with winter accumulation type, where the transformation of precipitation into runoff is mainly controlled by snow and glacier melt processes, the spatial discretization of precipitation tends to have less impact on simulated runoff than a correct prediction of the integral precipitation volume. Increasing model complexity by using spatially distributed input or semi-distributed parameters values does not increase model performance in the Gunt catchment, as the more complex model tends to be more sensitive to errors in the input data set. In our case, better model performance and quantification of the flow components can be achieved by additional calibration data, rather than by using a more distributed model parameters. However, a semi-distributed model better predicts the spatial patterns of snow accumulation and provides more plausible runoff predictions at the interior sites. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The aim of this paper is to describe and evaluate a hybrid spectral- and time-domain approach for the calibration of shot noise models for daily streamflow generation. The calibration approach allows the parameter estimation of a minimum-phase rainfall/streamflow model using two steps. In the predictor step, the power spectral density of a recorded streamflow series is used to calibrate the parameters connected with the model dynamics. During the corrector step, a classic time-domain procedure is used to calibrate the parameters connected with the average output of the model and the parameters that characterize the rainfall stochastic process. The procedure is demonstrated through its application to the daily streamflow time series associated with three Italian watersheds, and its results are then compared with those obtained by means of a time-domain calibration method available in the literature. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Predictions of solute transport in subsurface environments are notoriously unreliable due to aquifer heterogeneity and uncertainty about the values of hydraulic parameters. Probabilistic framework, which treats the relevant parameters and solute concentrations as random fields, allows for quantification of this predictive uncertainty. By providing deterministic equations for either probability density function or cumulative distribution function (CDF) of predicted concentrations, the method of distributions enables one to estimate, e.g., the probability of a contaminant's concentration exceeding a safe dose. We derive a deterministic equation for the CDF of solute concentration, which accounts for uncertainty in flow velocity and initial conditions. The coefficients in this equation are expressed in terms of the mean and variance of concentration. The accuracy and robustness of the CDF equations are analyzed by comparing their predictions with those obtained with Monte Carlo simulations and an assumed beta CDF. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: We present an investigation of the scale dependence of hydraulic parameters in fractured media based on the concept of transfer functions (TF). TF methods provide an inexpensive way to perform aquifer parameter estimation, as they relate the fluctuations of an observation time series (hydraulic head fluctuations) to an input function (aquifer recharge) in frequency domain. Fractured media are specially sensitive to this approach as hydraulic parameters are strongly scale dependent, involving non-stationary statistical distributions. Our study is based on an extensive data set, involving up to 130 measurement points with periodic head measurements that in some cases extend for more than 30 years. For each point, we use a single-porosity and dual-continuum TF formulation to obtain a distribution of transmissivities and storativities in both mobile and immobile domains. Single-porosity TF estimates are compared with data obtained from the interpretation of over 60 hydraulic tests (slug and pumping tests). Results show that the TF is able to estimate the scale dependence of the hydraulic parameters, and it is consistent with the behavior of estimates from traditional hydraulic tests. In addition, the TF approach seems to provide an estimation of the system variance and the extension of the ergodic behavior of the aquifer (estimated in approximately $500$m in the analyzed aquifer). The scale dependence of transmissivity seems to be independent from the adopted formulation (single or dual-continuum), while storativity is more sensitive to the presence of multiple continua. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Recursive digital filters (RDFs) are widely used for estimating baseflow from streamflow hydrographs, and various forms of RDFs have been developed based on different physical models. Numerical experiments have been used to objectively evaluate their performance, but they have not been sufficiently comprehensive to assess a wide range of RDFs. This paper extends these studies to understand the limitations of a generalized RDF method as a pathway for future field calibration. Two formalisms are presented to generalize most existing RDFs, allowing systematic tuning of their complexity. The RDFs with variable complexity are evaluated collectively in a synthetic setting, using modelled daily baseflow produced by Li et al . [2014] from a range of synthetic catchments simulated with HydroGeoSphere. Our evaluation reveals that there are optimal RDF complexities in reproducing baseflow simulations, but shows that there is an inherent physical inconsistency within the RDF construction. Even under the idealized setting where true baseflow data are available to calibrate the RDFs, there is persistent disagreement between true and estimated baseflow over catchments with small baseflow components, low saturated hydraulic conductivity of the soil and larger surface runoff. The simplest explanation is that low baseflow ‘signal' in the streamflow data is hard to distinguish, although more complex RDFs can improve upon the simpler Eckhardt filter at these catchments. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Quantifying how watershed structure influences the exchanges of water among component parts of a watershed, particularly the connection between uplands, valley bottoms, and in-stream hydrologic exchange remains a challenge. However, this understanding is critical for ascertaining the source areas and temporal contributions of water and associated biogeochemical constituents in streams. We used dilution gauging, mass recovery, and recording discharge stations to characterize streamflow dynamics across 52 reaches, from peak snowmelt to baseflow, in the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental forest, Montana, USA. We found that watershed-contributing area was only a significant predictor of net changes in streamflow at high moisture states and larger spatial scales. However, at the scale of individual stream reaches, the lateral contributing area in conjunction with underlying lithology and vegetation densities were significant predictors of gross hydrologic gains to the stream. Reach lateral contributing areas underlain by more permeable sandstone yielded less water across flow states relative to those with granite gneiss. Additionally, increases in the frequency of steps across each stream reach contributed to greater hydrologic gross losses. Together, gross gains and losses of water along individual reaches resulted in net changes of discharge that cumulatively scale to the observed outlet discharge dynamics. Our results provide a framework for understanding how hillslope topography, geology, vegetation and valley bottom structure contribute to the exchange of water and cumulative increases of stream flow across watersheds of increasing size. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Although ephemeral catchments are widespread in arid and semi-arid climates, the relationship of their water balance with climate, geology, topography, and land cover is poorly known. Here we use four years (2011-2014) of rainfall, streamflow, and groundwater level measurements to estimate the water balance components in two adjacent ephemeral catchments in south-eastern Australia, with one catchment planted with young eucalypts and the other dedicated to grazing pasture. To corroborate the interpretation of the observations, the physically-based hydrological model CATHY was calibrated and validated against the data in the two catchments. The estimated water balances showed that despite a significant decline in groundwater level and greater evapotranspiration in the eucalypt catchment (104-119% of rainfall) compared with the pasture catchment (95-104% of rainfall), streamflow consistently accounted for 1-4% of rainfall in both catchments for the entire study period. Streamflow in the two catchments was mostly driven by the rainfall regime, particularly rainfall frequency (i.e. the number of rain days per year), while the downslope orientation of the plantation furrows also promoted runoff. With minimum calibration, the model was able to adequately reproduce the periods of flow in both catchments in all years. Although streamflow and groundwater levels were better reproduced in the pasture than in the plantation, model-computed water balance terms confirmed the estimates from the observations in both catchments. Overall, the interplay of climate, topography, and geology seems to overshadow the effect of land use in the study catchments, indicating that the management ephemeral catchments remains highly challenging. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The use of additional types of observational data has often been suggested to alleviate the ill-posedness inherent to parameter estimation of groundwater models and constrain model uncertainty. Disinformation in observational data, caused by errors in either the observations or the chosen model structure may, however, confound the value of adding observational data in model conditioning. This paper uses the global generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation methodology to investigate the value of different observational data types (heads, fluxes, salinity and temperature) in conditioning a groundwater flow and transport model of an extensively monitored field site in the Netherlands. We compared model conditioning using the real observations to a synthetic model experiment, to demonstrate the possible influence of disinformation in observational data in model conditioning. Results showed that the value of different conditioning targets was less evident when conditioning to real measurements than in a measurement error-only synthetic model experiment. While in the synthetic experiment all conditioning targets clearly improved model outcomes, minor improvements or even worsening of model outcomes was observed for the real measurements. This result was caused by errors in both the model structure and the observations, resulting in disinformation in the observational data. The observed impact of disinformation in the observational data reiterates the necessity of thorough data validation and the need for accounting for both model structural and observational errors in model conditioning. It further suggests caution when translating results of synthetic modeling examples to real-world applications. Still, applying diverse conditioning data types was found to be essential to constrain uncertainty, especially in the transport of solutes in the model. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The rainfall-runoff response of watersheds is affected by the legacy of past hydroclimatic conditions. We examined how variability in precipitation affected streamflow using 21 years of daily streamflow and precipitation data from five watersheds at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in southwestern North Carolina, USA. The gauged watersheds contained both coniferous and deciduous vegetation, dominant north and south aspects, and differing precipitation magnitudes. Lag-correlations between precipitation and runoff ratios across a range of temporal resolutions indicated strong influence of past precipitation (i.e. watershed memory). At all time scales, runoff ratios strongly depended on the precipitation of previous time steps. At monthly time scales the influence of past precipitation was detectable for up to seven months. At seasonal time scales the previous season had a greater effect on a season's runoff ratio than the same season's precipitation. At annual time scales the previous year was equally important for a year's runoff ratio than the same year's precipitation. Estimated watershed storage through time and specifically the previous year's storage state was strongly correlated with the residuals of a regression between annual precipitation and annual runoff, partially explaining observed variability in annual runoff in watersheds with deep soils. This effect was less pronounced in the steepest watershed that also contained shallow soils. We suggest that the location of a watershed on a non-linear watershed-scale storage-release curve can explain differences in runoff during growing and dormant season between watersheds with different annual evapotranspiration. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Hysteretic processes have been recognized for decades as an important characteristic of soil hydraulic behaviour. Several studies confirmed that wetting and drying periods cannot be described by a simple functional relationship, and that some non-equilibrium of the water retention characteristics has to be taken into account. A large number of models describing the hysteresis of the soil water retention characteristic were successfully tested on soil cores under controlled laboratory conditions. However, its relevance under field conditions under natural forcings has rarely been investigated. In practice, the modeling of field soils usually neglects the hysteretic nature of soil hydraulic properties. In this study, long-term observations of water content and matric potential in lysimeters of the lysimeter network TERENO-SoilCan are presented, clearly demonstrating the hysteretic behavior of field soils. We propose a classification into three categories related to different time scales. Based on synthetic and long term monitoring data, three different models of hysteresis ( Mualem [1984], Parker and Lenhard [1987], Poulovassilis and Kargas [2000]) were applied to data sets showing different degrees of hysteresis. We found no single model to be superior to the others. The model ranking depended on the degree of hysteresis. All models were able to reflect the general structure of hysteresis in most cases but failed to reproduce the detailed trajectories of state variables especially under highly transient conditions. As an important result we found that the temporal dynamics of wetting and drying significantly affects these trajectories which should be accounted for in future model concepts. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Groundwater deficits occur in several areas of Central Mexico, where water resource assessment is limited by the availability and reliability of field data. In this context, GRACE and InSAR are used to remotely assess groundwater storage loss in one of Mexico's most important watersheds in terms of size and economic activity: the Lerma-Santiago-Pacifico (LSP). In situ data and Land Surface Models are used to subtract soil moisture and surface water storage changes from the total water storage change measured by GRACE satellites. As a result, groundwater mass change time-series are obtained for a 12 years period. ALOS-PALSAR images acquired from 2007 to 2011 were processed using the SBAS-InSAR algorithm to reveal areas subject to ground motion related to groundwater over-exploitation. In the perspective of providing guidance for groundwater management, GRACE and InSAR observations are compared with official water budgets and field observations. InSAR-derived subsidence mapping generally agrees well with official water budgets, and shows that deficits occur mainly in cities and irrigated agricultural areas. GRACE does not entirely detect the significant groundwater losses largely reported by official water budgets, literature and InSAR observations. The difference is interpreted as returns of wastewater to the groundwater flow systems, which limits the watershed scale groundwater depletion but suggests major impacts on groundwater quality. This phenomenon is enhanced by ground fracturing as noticed in the field. Studying the fate of the extracted groundwater is essential when comparing GRACE data with higher resolution observations, and particularly in the perspective of further InSAR/GRACE combination in hydrogeology. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Hydrologic responses to earthquakes and their mechanisms have been widely studied. Some responses have been attributed to increases in the vertical permeability. However, basic questions remain: How do increases in the vertical permeability occur? How frequently do they occur? Is there a quantitative measure for detecting the occurrence of aquitard breaching? We try to answer these questions by examining data from a dense network of ∼50 monitoring stations of clustered wells in a sedimentary basin near the epicenter of the 1999 M7.6 Chi-Chi earthquake in western Taiwan. While most stations show evidence that confined aquifers remained confined after the earthquake, about 10% of the stations show evidence of coseismic breaching of aquitards, creating vertical permeability as high as that of aquifers. The water levels in wells without evidence of coseismic breaching of aquitards show tidal responses similar to that of a confined aquifer before and after the earthquake. Those wells with evidence of coseismic breaching of aquitards, on the other hand, show distinctly different post-seismic tidal response. Furthermore, the post-seismic tidal response of different aquifers became strikingly similar, suggesting that the aquifers became hydraulically connected and the connection was maintained many months thereafter. Breaching of aquitards by large earthquakes has significant implications for a number of societal issues such as the safety of water resources, the security of underground waste repositories, and the production of oil and gas. The method demonstrated here may be used for detecting the occurrence of aquitard breaching by large earthquakes in other seismically active areas. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Surrogate models are commonly used in Bayesian approaches such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to avoid repetitive CPU-demanding model evaluations. However, the approximation error of a surrogate may lead to biased estimation of the posterior distribution. This bias can be corrected by constructing a very accurate surrogate or implementing MCMC in a two-stage manner. Since the two-stage MCMC requires extra original model evaluations after surrogate evaluations, the computational cost is still high. If the information of measurement is incorporated, a locally accurate surrogate can be adaptively constructed with low computational cost. Based on this idea, we integrate Gaussian process (GP) and MCMC to adaptively construct locally accurate surrogates for Bayesian experimental design in groundwater contaminant source identification problems. Moreover, the uncertainty estimate of GP approximation error is incorporated in the Bayesian formula to avoid over-confident estimation of the posterior distribution. The proposed approach is tested with a numerical case study. Without sacrificing the estimation accuracy, the new approach achieves about 200 times of speed-up compared to our previous work which implemented MCMC in a two-stage manner. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: ABSTRACT Interactions among hydraulic conductivity distributions, subsurface topography, and lateral flow are poorly understood. We applied 407 mm of water and a suite of tracers over 51 hours to a 12 by 16.5 m forested hillslope segment to determine interflow thresholds, preferential pathway pore velocities, large-scale conductivities, the time series of event water fractions, and the fate of dissolved nutrients. The 12% hillslope featured loamy sand A and E horizons overlying a sandy clay loam Bt at 1.25 m average depth. Interflow measured from two drains within an interception trench commenced after 131 and 208 mm of irrigation. Cumulative interflow equaled 49% of applied water. Conservative tracer differences between the collection drains indicated differences in flow paths and storages within the plot. Event water fractions rose steadily throughout irrigation, peaking at 50% sixteen hours after irrigation ceased. Data implied that tightly held water exchanged with event water throughout the experiment and a substantial portion of pre-event water was released from the argillic layer. Surface-applied dye tracers bypassed the matrix, with peak concentrations measured shortly after flow commencement, indicating preferential network conductivities of 864 to 2240 mm/h, yet no macropore flow was observed. Near steady-state flow conditions indicated average conductivities of 460 mm/h and 2.5 mm/h for topsoils and the Bt horizon, respectively. Low ammonium and phosphorus concentrations in the interflow suggested rapid uptake or sorption, while higher nitrate concentrations suggested more conservative transport. These results reveal how hydraulic conductivity variation and subsurface topographic complexity explain otherwise paradoxical solute and flow behaviors. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The identification of transport parameters by inverse modeling often suffers from equifinality or parameter correlation when models are fitted to measurements of the solute breakthrough in column outflow experiments. This parameter uncertainty can be approached by performing multiple experiments with different sets of boundary conditions, each provoking observations that are uniquely attributable to the respective transport processes. A promising approach to further increase the information potential of the experimental outcome is the closed-flow column design. It is characterized by the recirculation of the column effluent into the solution supply vessel that feeds the inflow, which results in a damped sinusoidal oscillation in the breakthrough curve. In order to reveal the potential application of closed-flow experiments, we present a comprehensive sensitivity analysis using common models for adsorption and degradation. We show that the sensitivity of inverse parameter determination with respect to the apparent dispersion can be controlled by the experimenter. For optimal settings, a decrease in parameter uncertainty as compared to classical experiments by an order of magnitude is achieved. In addition, we show a reduced equifinality between rate-limited interactions and apparent dispersion. Furthermore, we illustrate the expected breakthrough curve for equilibrium and nonequilibrium adsorption, the latter showing strong similarities to the behavior found for completely mixed batch reactor experiments. Finally, breakthrough data from a reactive tracer experiment is evaluated using the proposed framework with excellent agreement of model and experimental results. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: ABSTRACT In many areas of the world, groups of people have attempted to create urban landscapes that follow the principles of environmental sustainability. To this end, groups have devised alternative models, such as ecovillages, where low-impact handling is used and a way of life different from that of large population centers is adopted. Although these villages exist, their efficiency in the conservation of natural resources has not been effectively evaluated. This study evaluated the practices used by two Brazilian ecovillages to conserve water resources to assess whether this new concept of living is indeed successful in meeting sustainability goals. We selected 25 indicators of water sustainability, and using the Compromise Programming Method, we quantified the distance between those landscapes self-referenced as sustainable and an ideal hypothetical scenario. We also interpreted the communities perceptions using the distance between the current situations and the envisioned scenario. We concluded that both ecovillage are far from technically ideal scenario, but the communities have a strong sense of their limitations in implementing water resources conservation. The communities attributed this fact primarily to deficiencies in the shared management. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Unsaturated flow is an important factor that affects groundwater motion. Among various drainage models, the nonlinear Hillslope-storage Boussinesq (HSB) model has been commonly used to predict water flux along a slope. In this study, we improved this model by considering lateral flow in the unsaturated zone. Using modified van Genuchten functions, we analytically expressed the concept of equivalent propagation thickness in the vadose zone. This analytical expression was then incorporated into the HSB model to reflect two different stages of the drainage process and to simulate the hillslope drainage process more accurately. The model results indicated that lateral flow has significant effects in the unsaturated zone during the hillslope drainage process. Even in sandy aquifers, the amount of water contributed by the unsaturated zone is a key factor that enables a decrease in the water table during the middle and late stages of the process. A comparison between the measured and simulated results based on both convergent- and divergent-type hillslope drainage processes revealed that the thickness of the saturated zone decreases as the unsaturated flow increases. This study emphasizes the necessity of considering unsaturated flow in the HSB model to improve the accuracy of predicting groundwater outflow rates and develop more accurate hydrographs. The concept of equivalent propagation thickness also provides a criterion for assessing the importance of unsaturated lateral flow for future drainage research. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Streams and rivers are important pathways for the export of atmospherically deposited mercury (Hg) from watersheds. Dissolved Hg (Hg D ) is strongly associated with dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in stream water, but the ratio of Hg D to DOC is highly variable between watersheds. In this study, the Hg D :DOC ratios from 19 watersheds were evaluated with respect to Hg wet deposition and watershed soil organic carbon (SOC) content. On a subset of sites where data were available, DOC quality measured by specific ultra violet absorbance at 254 nm, was considered as an additional factor that may influence Hg D :DOC . No significant relationship was found between Hg wet deposition and Hg D :DOC, but SOC content (g m −2 ) was able to explain 81% of the variance in the Hg D :DOC ratio (ng mg −1 ) following the form: Hg D :DOC=17.8*SOC −0.41 . The inclusion of DOC quality as a secondary predictor variable explained only an additional 1% of the variance. A mathematical framework to interpret the observed power-law relationship between Hg D :DOC and SOC suggests Hg supply limitation for adsorption to soils with relatively large carbon pools. With SOC as a primary factor controlling the association of Hg D with DOC, SOC datasets may be utilized to predict stream Hg D :DOC ratios on a more geographically widespread basis. In watersheds where DOC data is available, estimates of Hg D may be readily obtained. Future Hg emissions policies must consider soil-mediated processes that affect the transport of Hg and DOC from terrestrial watersheds to streams for accurate predictions of water quality impacts. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The Colorado River has been identified as the most overallocated river in the world. Considering predicted future imbalances between water supply and demand, and the growing recognition that baseflow (a proxy for groundwater discharge to streams) is critical for sustaining flow in streams and rivers, there is a need to develop methods to better quantify present-day baseflow across large regions. We adapted and applied the spatially referenced regression on watershed attributes (SPARROW) water quality model to assess the spatial distribution of baseflow, the fraction of streamflow supported by baseflow, and estimates of and potential processes contributing to the amount of baseflow that is lost during in-stream transport in the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB). On average, 56% of the streamflow in the UCRB originated as baseflow, and precipitation was identified as the dominant driver of spatial variability in baseflow at the scale of the UCRB, with the majority of baseflow discharge to streams occurring in upper elevation watersheds. The model estimates an average of 1.8x10 10 m 3 /yr of baseflow in the UCRB; greater than 80% of which is lost during in-stream transport to the Lower Colorado River Basin via processes including evapotranspiration and water diversion for irrigation. Our results indicate that surface waters in the Colorado River Basin are dependent on baseflow, and that management approaches that consider groundwater and surface water as a joint resource will be needed to effectively manage current and future water resources in the Basin. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: This paper develops a method that incorporates the public value for environmental co-benefits when a conservation buyer can purchase water quality credits based on non-market valuation results. We demonstrate this approach through an experiment with adult students in a classroom laboratory environment. Our application contributes to the study of individual preference and willingness to pay for co-benefits associated with the production of water quality credits in relation to the Ohio River Basin Trading Project. We use three different methods to elicit individuals' willingness to pay (WTP), including 1) a hypothetical referendum, 2) a real referendum lacking incentive compatibility and 3) a real choice with incentive compatibility. Methodologically, our WTP estimates suggest individuals are more sensitive to the cost changes and reveal the lowest value in the real choice with incentive compatibility. Practically, we find individuals value certain co-benefits and credits as public goods. Incorporating public value toward co-benefits may improve the overall efficiency of a water quality trading market. Based on our specification of a planner's welfare function, results suggest a 34% welfare improvement after identifying an optimal allocation of a buyer's budget across credits derived from agricultural management practices producing different portfolios of co-benefits. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Long streamwise-elongated high- and low-speed streaks are repeatedly observed near the free surface in open channel flows in natural rivers and lab experiments. Super-streamwise vortex model has been proposed to explain this widespread phenomenon for quite some time. However, statistical evidence of the existence of the super-streamwise vortices as one type of coherent structures is still insufficient. Correlation and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis based on PIV experimental data in the streamwise-spanwise plane near the free surface in a smooth open channel flow are employed to investigate this topic. Correlation analysis revealed that the streaky structures appear frequently near the free surface and their occurrence probability at any spanwise position is equal. The spanwise velocity fluctuation usually flows from low-speed streaks toward high-speed streaks. The average spanwise width and spacing between neighboring low (or high) speed streaks are approximately h and 2 h respectively. POD analysis reveals that there are streaks with different spanwise width in the instantaneous flow fields. Typical streamwise rotational movement can be sketched out directly based on the results from statistical analyzes. Point-by-point analysis indicates that this pattern is consistent everywhere in the measurement window and is without any inhomogeneity in the spanwise direction, which reveals the essential difference between coherent structures and secondary flow cells. The pattern found by statistical analysis is consistent with the notion that the super-streamwise vortices exist universally as one type of coherent structure in open channel flows. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Equations based on surface renewal (SR) analysis to estimate the sensible heat flux ( H ) require as input the mean ramp amplitude and period observed in the ramp-like pattern of the air temperature measured at high frequency. A SR-based method to estimate sensible heat flux ( H SR-LST ) requiring only low-frequency measurements of the air temperature, horizontal mean wind speed, and land-surface temperature as input was derived and tested under unstable conditions over a heterogeneous canopy (olive grove). H SR-LST assumes that the mean ramp amplitude can be inferred from the difference between land-surface temperature and mean air temperature through a linear relationship and that the ramp frequency is related to a wind shear scale characteristic of the canopy flow. The land-surface temperature was retrieved by integrating in-situ sensing measures of thermal infrared energy emitted by the surface. The performance of H SR-LST was analysed against flux tower measurements collected at two heights (close to and well above the canopy top). Crucial parameters involved in H SR-LST , which define the above mentioned linear relationship, were explained using the canopy height and the land surface temperature observed at sunrise and sunset. Although the olive grove can behave as either an isothermal or anisothermal surface, H SR-LST performed close to H measured using the eddy covariance and the Bowen ratio energy balance methods. Root mean square differences between H SR-LST and measured H were of about 55 W m −2 . Thus, by using multi-temporal thermal acquisitions, H SR-LST appears to bypass inconsistency between land surface temperature and the mean aerodynamic temperature. The one-source bulk transfer formulation for estimating H performed reliable after calibration against the eddy covariance method. After calibration, the latter performed similar to the proposed SR-LST method. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Terrestrial moisture contributed by surface evaporation and transpiration, also known as recycled moisture, plays an important role in hydrological processes especially across arid central Asia. The stable hydrogen and oxygen isotopes can be used for water budget analysis to calculate the contribution of recycled moisture to precipitation between two locations along the moisture flow. Based on a three-component isotopic mixing model, the moisture recycling in oasis stations of arid central Asia during summer months is assessed. At large oases of Urumqi, the proportional contribution of recycled moisture to local precipitation is approximately 16.2%, and the mean proportions of surface evaporation and transpiration are 5.9%±1.5% and 10.3%±2.2%, respectively. At small oases like Shihezi and Caijiahu the contribution of recycled moisture is less than 5%, and the proportion of surface evaporation is much less than that of transpiration. The vegetative cover in arid central Asia is generally sparse, but the evapotranspiration contribution to precipitation cannot be ignored at the widely distributed oases. The oasis effect shows great variability depending on locations and water availability for evapotranspiration. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: In floodplain environments, a naturally reduced zone (NRZ) is considered to be a common biogeochemical hotspot, having distinct microbial and geochemical characteristics. Although important for understanding their role in mediating floodplain biogeochemical processes, mapping the subsurface distribution of NRZs over the dimensions of a floodplain is challenging, as conventional wellbore data are typically spatially limited and the distribution of NRZs is heterogeneous. In this study, we present an innovative methodology for the probabilistic mapping of NRZs within a three-dimensional (3D) subsurface domain using induced polarization imaging, which is a non-invasive geophysical technique. Measurements consist of surface geophysical surveys and drilling-recovered sediments at the U.S. Department of Energy field site near Rifle, CO (USA). Inversion of surface time-domain induced polarization (TDIP) data yielded 3D images of the complex electrical resistivity, in terms of magnitude and phase, which are associated with mineral precipitation and other lithological properties. By extracting the TDIP data values co-located with wellbore lithological logs, we found that the NRZs have a different distribution of resistivity and polarization from the other aquifer sediments. To estimate the spatial distribution of NRZs, we developed a Bayesian hierarchical model to integrate the geophysical and wellbore data. In addition, the resistivity images were used to estimate hydrostratigraphic interfaces under the floodplain. Validation results showed that the integration of electrical imaging and wellbore data using an Bayesian hierarchical model was capable of mapping spatially heterogeneous interfaces and NRZ distributions thereby providing a minimally invasive means to parameterize a hydro-biogeochemical model of the floodplain. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Choosing secure water resource management plans inevitably requires trade-offs between risks (for a variety of stakeholders), costs and other impacts. We have previously argued that water resources planning should focus upon metrics of risk of water restrictions, accompanied by extensive simulation- and scenario-based exploration of uncertainty. However, the results of optimisation subject to risk constraints can be sensitive to the specification of tolerable risk, which may not be precisely or consistently defined by different stakeholders. In this paper we recast the water resources planning problem as a multi-objective optimisation problem to identify least cost schemes that satisfy a set of criteria for tolerable risk, where tolerable risk is defined in terms of the frequency of water use restrictions of different levels of severity. Our proposed method links a very large ensemble of climate model projections to a water resource system model and a multi-objective optimization algorithm to identify a Pareto optimal set of water resource management plans across a 25 years planning period. In a case study application to the London water supply system, we identify water resources management plans that, for a given financial cost, maximise performance with respect to one or more probabilistic criteria. This illustrates trade-offs between financial costs of plans and risk, and between risk criteria for four different severities of water use restrictions. Graphical representation of alternative sequences of investments in the Pareto set helps to identify water management options for which there is a robust case for including them in the plan. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: This study explores the feasibility of identifying the effective soil hydraulic parameterization of a layered soil profile by using a conventional unsteady drainage experiment leading to field capacity. The flux-based field capacity criterion is attained by subjecting the soil profile to a synthetic drainage process implemented numerically in the Soil-Water-Atmosphere-Plant (SWAP) model. The effective hydraulic parameterization is associated to either aggregated or equivalent parameters, the former being determined by the geometrical scaling theory while the latter is obtained through the inverse modeling approach. Outcomes from both these methods depend on information that is sometimes difficult to retrieve at local scale and rather challenging or virtually impossible at larger scales. The only knowledge of topsoil hydraulic properties, for example as retrieved by a near-surface field campaign or a data assimilation technique, is often exploited as a proxy to determine effective soil hydraulic parameterization at the largest spatial scales. Comparisons of the effective soil hydraulic characterization provided by these three methods are conducted by discussing the implications for their use and accounting for the trade-offs between required input information and model output reliability. To better highlight the epistemic errors associated to the different effective soil hydraulic properties and to provide some more practical guidance, the layered soil profiles are then grouped by using the FAO textural classes. For the moderately heterogeneous soil profiles available, all three approaches guarantee a general good predictability of the actual field capacity values and provide adequate identification of the effective hydraulic parameters. Conversely, worse performances are encountered for the highly variable vertical heterogeneity, especially when resorting to the “ topsoil only ” information. In general, the best performances are guaranteed by the equivalent parameters, which might be considered a reference for comparisons with other techniques. As might be expected, the information content of the soil hydraulic properties pertaining only to the uppermost soil horizon is rather inefficient and also unable to map out the hydrologic behavior of the real vertical soil heterogeneity since the drainage process is significantly affected by profile layering in almost all cases. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The interaction between flow and vegetation creates feedbacks to deposition that vary with channel velocity. This experimental study describes how channel velocity and stem-generated turbulence influence the deposition within and around an emergent patch of model vegetation, with a particular focus on deposition within the patch. The Reynolds number threshold for stem-scale turbulence generation was determined using velocity spectra and flow visualization. At high channel velocity resuspension occurred in the bare regions of the channel and a non-uniform spatial distribution of net deposition was observed around and within the patch. In contrast, at low channel velocity there was no (or limited) resuspension and a uniform distribution of net deposition was observed around and within the patch. The deposition inside the patch was enhanced, relative to a bare-channel control, only when the following two criteria were met: (1) the absence of stem turbulence, and (2) the presence of sediment resuspension in the bare channel. Comparison to previous lab and field studies further support these criteria. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Soil porewater salinity plays an important role in the distribution of vegetation and biogeochemical processes in coastal floodplain ecosystems. In this study, artificial neural networks (ANNs) was applied to simulate the porewater salinity of a tidal floodplain in Florida. We present an approach based on embedding theory with mutual information to reconstruct ANN model input time series from one system state variable. Mutual information between system output and input was computed and the local minimum mutual information points were used to determine a time lag vector for time series embedding and reconstruction, with which the mutual information weighted average method was developed to compute the components of reconstructed time series. The optimal embedding dimension was obtained by optimizing model performance. The method was applied to simulate soil porewater salinity dynamics at 12 probe locations in the tidal floodplain influenced by saltwater intrusion using four years (2005 to 2008) data, in which adjacent river water salinity was used to reconstruct model input. The simulated electrical conductivity of the porewater showed close agreement with field observations ( RMSE ≤ 0.031 S/m and R 2 ≥ 0.897), suggesting the reconstructed input by the proposed approach provided adequate input information for ANN modeling. Multiple linear regression model, partial mutual information algorithm for input variable selection, k -NN algorithm, and simple time delay embedding were also used to further verify the merit of the proposed approach. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: An investigation into the interactions between a model axial flow hydrokinetic turbine (rotor diameter, d T = 0.15 m) and the complex hydrodynamics and sediment transport processes within a meandering channel was carried out in the Outdoor StreamLab research facility at the University of Minnesota St. Anthony Falls Laboratory. This field-scale meandering stream with bulk flow and sediment discharge control provided a location for high spatio-temporally resolved measurements of bed and water surface elevations around the model turbine. The device was installed within an asymmetric, erodible channel cross-section under migrating bedform and fixed outer bank conditions. A comparative analysis between velocity and topographic measurements, with and without the turbine installed, highlights the local and non-local features of the turbine-induced scour and deposition patterns. In particular, it shows how the cross-section geometry changes, how the bedform characteristics are altered, and how the mean flow field is distorted both upstream and downstream of the turbine. We further compare and discuss how current energy conversion deployments in meander regions would result in different interactions between the turbine operation and the local and non-local bathymetry compared to straight channels. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The topography, and the biotic and abiotic parameters are typically upscaled to make watershed-scale hydrologic-biogeochemical models computationally tractable. However, upscaling procedure can produce biases when nonlinear interactions between different processes are not fully captured at coarse resolutions. Here we applied the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition Mapping Method (PODMM) to downscale the field solutions from a coarse (7 km) resolution grid to a fine (220 m) resolution grid. PODMM trains a reduced order model (ROM) with coarse- and fine-resolution solutions, here obtained using PAWS+CLM, a quasi-3D watershed processes model that has been validated for many temperate watersheds. Subsequent fine-resolution solutions were approximated based only on coarse-resolution solutions and the ROM. The approximation errors were efficiently quantified using an error estimator. By jointly estimating correlated variables and temporally varying the ROM parameters, we further reduced the approximation errors by up to 20\%. We also improved the method's robustness by constructing multiple ROMs using different set of variables, and selecting the best approximation based on the error estimator. The ROMs produced accurate downscaling of soil moisture, latent heat flux, and net primary production with O(1000) reduction in computational cost. The subgrid distributions were also nearly indistinguishable from the ones obtained using the fine-resolution model. Compared to coarse-resolution solutions, biases in upscaled ROM solutions were reduced by up to 80\%. This method has the potential to help address the long-standing spatial scaling problem in hydrology and enable long-time integration, parameter estimation, and stochastic uncertainty analysis while accurately representing the heterogeneities. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Stochastic realizations of lithofacies assemblage based on lithological data from a relatively small number of boreholes were used to simulate solute transport at the well-known Macrodispersion Experiment (MADE) site in Mississippi (USA). With sharp vertical contrasts and lateral connectivity explicitly accounted for in the corresponding hydraulic conductivity fields, experimental results from a large-scale tracer experiment were adequately reproduced with a relatively simple model based on advection and local dispersion. The geologically based model of physical heterogeneity shows that one well interconnected lithofacies, with a significantly higher hydraulic conductivity and accounting for 12% of the total aquifer volume, may be responsible for the observed non-Fickian transport behavior indicated by the asymmetric shape of the plumes and by variations of the dispersion rate in both space and time. This analysis provides a lithological basis to the hypothesis that transport at MADE site is controlled by a network of high-conductivity sediments embedded in a less permeable matrix. It also explains the calibrated value of the ratio of mobile to total porosities used in previous modelling studies based on the dual-domain mass transfer approach. The results of this study underscore the importance of geologically plausible conceptualizations of the subsurface for making accurate predictions of the fate and transport of contaminants in highly heterogeneous aquifers. These conceptualizations may be developed through integration of raw geological data with expert knowledge, interpretation and appropriate geostatistical methods. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Using an asymptotic methodology, valid in the presence of smoothly-varying heterogeneity and prescribed boundaries, we derive a trajectory-based solution for tracer transport. The analysis produces a Hamilton-Jacobi partial differential equation for the phase of the propagating tracer front. The trajectories follow from the characteristic equations that are equivalent to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. The paths are determined by the fluid velocity field, the total porosity, and the dispersion tensor. Due to their dependence upon the local hydrodynamic dispersion, they differ from conventional streamlines. This difference is borne out in numerical calculations for both uniform and dipole flow fields. In an application to the computational x-ray imaging of a saline tracer test, we illustrate that the trajectories may serve as the basis for a form of tracer tomography. In particular, we use the onset time of a change in attenuation for each volume element of the x-ray image as a measure of the arrival time of the saline tracer. The arrival times are used to image the spatial variation of the effective hydraulic conductivity within the laboratory sample. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Wetland biogeochemical transformations are affected by flow and mixing in wetland surface water. We investigate the influence of wind on wetland water flow by simultaneously measuring wind and surface water velocities in an enclosed freshwater wetland during one day of strong-wind conditions. Water velocities are measured using a Volumetric Particle Imager while wind velocities are measured via sonic-anemometer. Our measurements indicate that the wind interacting with the vegetation canopy generates coherent billows and that these billows are the dominant source of momentum into the wetland water column. Spectral analysis of velocity timeseries shows that the spectral peak in water velocity is aligned with the spectral peak of in-canopy wind velocity, and that this peak corresponds with the Kelvin-Helmholtz billow frequency predicted by mixing layer theory. We also observe a strong correlation in the temporal pattern of velocity variance in the air and water, with high variance events having similar timing and duration both above and below the air-water interface. Water-side variance appears coupled with air-side variance at least down to 5 cm, while the theoretical Stokes' solution predicts momentum transfer down to only 2 mm assuming transfer via molecular viscosity alone. This suggests that the wind-driven flow contributed to significant mixing in the wetland water column. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: A time varying risk analysis is proposed for an adaptive design framework in non-stationary conditions arising from climate change. A Bayesian, dynamic conditional copula is developed for modeling the time-varying dependence structure between mixed continuous and discrete multi-attributes of multi-dimensional hydro-meteorological phenomena. Joint Bayesian inference is carried out to fit the marginals and copula in an illustrative example using an adaptive, Gibbs Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampler. Posterior mean estimates and credible intervals are provided for the model parameters and the Deviance Information Criterion (DIC) is used to select the model that best captures different forms of non-stationarity over time. This study also introduces a fully Bayesian, time-varying joint return period for multivariate time-dependent risk analysis in non-stationary environments. The results demonstrate that the nature and the risk of extreme-climate multi-dimensional processes are changed over time under the impact of climate change, and accordingly the long-term decision making strategies should be updated based on the anomalies of the non-stationary environment. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The memory timescale that characterizes root-zone soil moisture remains the dominant measure in seasonal forecasts of land-climate interactions. This memory is a quasi-deterministic timescale associated with the losses (e.g. evapotranspiration) from the soil column and is often interpreted as persistence in soil moisture states. Persistence, however, represents a distribution of time periods where soil moisture resides above or below some prescribed threshold, and is therefore inherently probabilistic. Using multiple soil moisture datasets collected at high resolution (sub-hourly) across different biomes and climates, this paper explores the differences, underlying dynamics, and relative importance of memory and persistence timescales in root-zone soil moisture. A first-order Markov process, commonly used to interpret soil moisture fluctuations derived from climate simulations, is also used as a reference model. Persistence durations of soil moisture below the plant water-stress level (chosen as the threshold), and the temporal spectrum of up- and down-crossings of this threshold, are compared to the memory timescale and spectrum of the full time series, respectively. The results indicate that despite the differences between meteorological drivers, the spectrum of threshold-crossings is similar across sites, and follows a unique relation with that of the full soil moisture series. The distribution of persistence times exhibits an approximate stretched exponential type and reflects a likelihood of exceeding the memory at all sites. However, the rainfall counterpart of these distributions shows that persistence of dry atmospheric periods is less likely at sites with long soil moisture memory. The cluster exponent, a measure of the density of threshold crossings in a time frame, reveals that the clustering tendency in rainfall events (on-off switches) does not translate directly to clustering in soil moisture. This is particularly the case in climates where rainfall and evapotranspiration are out of phase, resulting in less ordered (more independent) persistence in soil moisture than in rainfall. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Streambed conductance controls the interaction between surface and groundwater. However, the streambed conductance is often subject to transience. Directly measuring hydraulic properties in a river yields only point values, is time-consuming and therefore not suited to detect transience of physical properties. Here, we present a method to continuously monitor transience in streambed conductance. Input data are time series of stream stage and near stream hydraulic head variations. The method is based on the inversion of a floodwave response. The analytical model consists of 3 parameters: x , the distance between streambank and an observation well, α, the aquifer diffusivity and a the retardation coefficient that is inversely proportional to the streambed conductance. Estimation of a is carried out over successive time steps in order to identify transience in streambed conductance. The method is tested on synthetic data and is applied to field data from the Rhône River and its alluvial aquifer (Switzerland). The synthetic method demonstrated the robustness of the proposed methodology. Application of the method to the field site allowed identifying transience in streambed properties, following flood events in the Rhône. This method requires transience in the surface water, and the river should not change its width significantly with a rising water level. If these conditions are fulfilled, this method allows for a rapid and effective identification of transience of streambed conductance. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: A well-field within a uranium (U) plume in the groundwater-surface water transition zone was monitored for a three year period for water table elevation and dissolved solutes. The plume discharges to the Columbia River, which displays a dramatic spring stage surge resulting from snowmelt. Groundwater exhibits a low hydrologic gradient and chemical differences with river water. River water intrudes the site in spring. Specific aims were to assess the impacts of river intrusion on dissolved uranium (U aq ), specific conductance (SpC), and other solutes, and to discriminate between transport, geochemical, and source term heterogeneity effects. Time series trends for U aq and SpC were complex and displayed large temporal and well-to-well variability as a result of water table elevation fluctuations, river water intrusion, and changes in groundwater flow directions. The wells were clustered into subsets exhibiting common behaviors resulting from the intrusion dynamics of river water and the location of source terms Hot-spots in U aq varied in location with increasing water table elevation through the combined effects of advection and source term location. Heuristic reactive transport modeling with PFLOTRAN demonstrated that mobilized U aq was transported between wells and source terms in complex trajectories, and was diluted as river water entered and exited the groundwater system. While U aq time-series concentration trends varied significantly from year to year as a result of climate-caused differences in the spring hydrograph, common and partly predictable response patterns were observed that were driven by water table elevation, and the extent and duration of river water intrusion. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Models of reduced dimensionality have been found to be particularly attractive in simulating the fate of injected CO 2 in supercritical state in the context of carbon capture and storage. This is motivated by the confluence of three aspects: The strong buoyant segregation of the lighter CO 2 phase above water, the relatively long time-scales associated with storage, and finally the large aspect ratios that characterize the geometry of typical storage aquifers. However, to date these models have been confined to considering only the flow problem, as the coupling between reduced dimensionality models for flow and models for geomechanical response has previously not been developed. Herein, we develop a fully coupled, reduced dimension, model for multiphase flow and geomechanics. It is characterized by the aquifer(s) being of lower dimension(s), while the surrounding over- and underburden being of full dimension. The model allows for general constitutive functions for fluid flow (relative permeability and capillary pressure), and uses the standard Biot coupling between the flow and mechanical equations. The coupled model retains all the simplicities of reduced-dimensional models for flow, including less stiff non-linear systems of equations (since the upscaled constitutive functions are closer to linear), longer time-steps (since the high grid resolution in the vertical direction can be avoided), and less degrees of freedom. We illustrate the applicability of the new coupled model through both a validation study as well as a practical computational example. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Modeling and observation of ground temperature dynamics are the main tools for understanding current permafrost thermal regimes and projecting future thaw. Until recently, most studies on permafrost have focused on vertical ground heat fluxes. Groundwater can transport heat in both lateral and vertical directions but its influence on ground temperatures at local scales in permafrost environments is not well understood. In this study we combine field observations from a subarctic fen in the sporadic permafrost zone with numerical simulations of coupled water and thermal fluxes. At the Tavvavuoma study site in northern Sweden, ground temperature profiles and groundwater levels were observed in boreholes. These observations were used to set up one- and two-dimensional simulations down to 2 m depth across a gradient of permafrost conditions within and surrounding the fen. Two-dimensional scenarios representing the fen under various hydraulic gradients were developed to quantify the influence of groundwater flow on ground temperature. Our observations suggest that lateral groundwater flows significantly affect ground temperatures. This is corroborated by modeling results that show seasonal ground ice melts 1 month earlier when a lateral groundwater flux is present. Further, although the thermal regime may be dominated by vertically conducted heat fluxes during most of the year, isolated high groundwater flow rate events such as the spring freshet are potentially important for ground temperatures. As sporadic permafrost environments often contain substantial portions of unfrozen ground with active groundwater flow paths, knowledge of this heat transport mechanism is important for understanding permafrost dynamics in these environments. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Worldwide water governance failures undermine effective water management under uncertainty and change. Overcoming these failures requires employing more adaptive, resilient water management approaches; yet, while scholars have advance theory of what adaptive, resilient approaches should be, there is little empirical evidence to support those normative propositions. To fill this gap, we reviewed the literature to derive theorized characteristics of adaptive, resilient water governance including knowledge generation and use, participation, clear rules for water use, and incorporating non-stationarity. Then, using interviews and documentary analysis focused on five US states' allocation and planning approaches, we examined empirically if embodying these characteristics made states more (or less) adaptive and resilient in practice. We found that adaptive, resilient water governance requires not just possessing these characteristics but combining and building on them. That is, adaptive, resilient water governance requires well-funded, transparent knowledge systems combined with broad, multi-level participatory processes that support learning, strong institutional arrangements that establish authorities and rules and that allow flexibility as conditions change, and resources for integrated planning and allocation. We also found that difficulty incorporating climate change or altering existing water governance paradigms and inadequate funding of water programs undermine adaptive, resilient governance. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The mechanisms that control free phase gas (FPG) dynamics within peatlands, and therefore estimates of past, present, and future gas fluxes to the atmosphere remain unclear. Electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) is capable of autonomously collecting three dimensional data on the cm to tens of meter scale and thus provides a unique opportunity to observe FPG dynamics in situ . We collected 127 3D ERI datasets as well as water level, soil temperature, atmospheric pressure, and limited methane flux data at a site in a northern peatland over the period July-August, 2013 to improve the understanding of mechanisms controlling gas releases at a hitherto uncaptured field scale. Our results show the ability of ERI to image the spatial distribution of gas accumulation and infer dynamics of gas migration through the peat column at high (i.e. hourly) temporal resolution. Furthermore, the method provides insights into the role of certain mechanisms previously associated with the triggering of FPG releases such as drops in atmospheric pressure. During these events, buoyancy-driven gas release primarily occurs in shallow peat as proposed by the ‘shallow peat model.' Releases from the deeper peat are impeded by confining layers, and we observed a large loss of FPG in deep peat that may likely represent a rupture event where accumulated FPG escaped the confining layer as suggested by the 'deep peat model'. Negative linear correlations between water table elevation and resistivity result from hydrostatic pressure regulating bubble volume, although these variations did not appear to trigger FPG transfer or release. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: This study investigates a physical basis for heterogeneity in hydrological changes, which suggests a greater detectability in wet than dry regions. Wet regions are those where atmospheric demand is less than precipitation (energy-limited), and dry regions are those where atmospheric demand is greater than precipitation (water-limited). Long-term streamflow trends in western North America and an analysis of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) climate models at global scales show geographically heterogeneous detectability of hydrological changes. We apply the Budyko framework and state-of-the-art climate model data from CMIP5 to quantify the sensitivity and detectability of terrestrial hydrological changes . The Budyko framework quantifies the partitioning of precipitation into evapotranspiration and runoff components. We find that the terrestrial hydrological sensitivity is three times greater in regions where the hydrological cycle is energy-limited rather than water-limited. This additional source (the terrestrial part) contributes to 30-40% greater detectability in energy-limited regions. We also quantified the contribution of changes in the catchment efficiency parameter that oppose the effects of increasing evaporative demand in global warming scenarios. Incorporating changes to the catchment efficiency parameter in the Budyko framework reduces dry biases in global runoff change projections by 88% in the 21 st century. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: In this study, rating curves (RCs) were determined by applying satellite altimetry to a poorly gauged basin. This study demonstrates the synergistic application of remote sensing and watershed modeling to capture the dynamics and quantity of flow in the Amazon River Basin, respectively. Three major advancements for estimating basin-scale patterns in river discharge are described. The first advancement is the preservation of the hydrological meanings of the parameters expressed by Manning's equation to obtain a dataset containing the elevations of the river beds throughout the basin. The second advancement is the provision of parameter uncertainties and, therefore, the uncertainties in the rated discharge. The third advancement concerns estimating the discharge while considering backwater effects. We analyzed the Amazon Basin using nearly one thousand series that were obtained from ENVISAT and Jason-2 altimetry for more than 100 tributaries. Discharge values and related uncertainties were obtained from the rain-discharge MGB-IPH model. We used a global optimization algorithm based on the Monte Carlo Markov Chain and Bayesian framework to determine the rating curves. The data was randomly allocated into 80% calibration and 20% validation subsets. A comparison with the validation samples produced a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency ( E ns ) of 0.68. When the MGB discharge uncertainties were less than 5%, the E ns value increased to 0.81 (mean). A comparison with the in situ discharge resulted in an E ns value of 0.71 for the validation samples (and 0.77 for calibration). The E ns values at the mouths of the rivers that experienced backwater effects significantly improved when the mean monthly slope was included in the RC. Our RCs were not mission dependent, and the E ns value was preserved when applying ENVISAT rating curves to Jason-2 altimetry at cross-overs. The cease-to-flow parameter of our RCs provided a good proxy for determining river bed elevation. This proxy was validated against Acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) cross sections with an accuracy of more than 90%. Altimetry measurements are routinely delivered within a few days, and this RC dataset provides a simple and cost-effective tool for predicting discharge throughout the basin in nearly real time. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Improved understanding of stream solute transport requires meaningful comparison of processes across a wide range of discharge conditions and spatial scales. At reach scales where solute tracer tests are commonly used to assess transport behavior, such comparison is still confounded due to the challenge of separating dispersive and transient storage processes from the influence of the advective timescale that varies with discharge and reach length. To better resolve interpretation of these processes from field-based tracer observations, we conducted recurrent conservative solute tracer tests along a 1-km study reach during a storm discharge period and further discretized the study reach into six segments of similar length but different channel morphologies. The resulting suite of data, spanning an order of magnitude in advective timescales, enabled us to (1) characterize relationships between tracer response and discharge in individual segments and (2) determine how combining the segments into longer reaches influences interpretation of dispersion and transient storage from tracer tests. We found that the advective timescale was the primary control on the shape of the observed tracer response. Most segments responded similarly to discharge, implying that the influence of morphologic heterogeneity was muted relative to advection. Comparison of tracer data across combined segments demonstrated that increased advective timescales could be misinterpreted as a change in dispersion or transient storage. Taken together, our results stress the importance of characterizing the influence of changing advective timescales on solute tracer responses before such reach scale observations can be used to infer solute transport at larger network scales. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Stemming from Segerson [1988], literature on nonpoint source pollution shows that ambient-based regulatory policies can induce polluters in a common watershed to comply with an exogenously determined pollution standard. This study uses laboratory economic experiments in a spatially heterogeneous setting to test the effectiveness of an ambient tax/subsidy policy in a setting with realistic in-stream nutrient transport dynamics when varying levels of sensor information on ambient pollution is available to the agents and the regulator. We find that increasing the frequency of ambient monitoring improves the spatial allocation of emissions reductions. In particular with more frequent monitoring, the ambient-based policy induces firms further from the monitoring point to reduce emissions significantly more than downstream firms. Overall, the results suggest that enhanced temporal resolution leads to efficiency gains. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Water recycling is increasingly recognized as a critical strategy to maintain sustainable water supplies. Yet public acceptance of water recycling often lags behind. It is unclear the degree to which individuals are aware of the role of disgust in their decisions about recycled water, how important anticipated disgust is to willingness to use when controlling for other factors, and what the most effective method of presenting information about water recycling would be to decrease disgust reactions and increase willingness to use. We used a two-pronged approach, combining a survey with open-ended and psychometric measures with an experimental manipulation, in a US, web-based sample [ N = 428]. Only 2% of participants self-identified disgust as important to their decisions about recycled water. When measured directly using a Likert scale, however, anticipated disgust was the strongest predictor of willingness to use recycled water when controlling for individual differences that have been shown to impact willingness to use, including a subscale of individual pathogen disgust sensitivity. Finally, participants were exposed to an educational brochure about water reuse framed either affectively or cognitively or were shown a simple, neutral definition. Exposure to either the affectively or cognitively framed brochures lowered anticipated disgust, but did not significantly affect willingness to use recycled water compared to the neutral brochure. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The aim of the present numerical study was to extend the data-driven protocol for the control of soil salinity [ Russo et al ., 2015], to control chloride and nitrate concentrations and mass fluxes below agricultural fields irrigated with treated waste water (TWW). The protocol is based on alternating irrigation water quality between TWW and desalinized water (DSW), guided by solute concentrations at soil depth, z s . Two different schemes, the first requires measurements of soil solution concentrations of chloride and nitrate at z s , while, the second scheme requires only measurements of soil solution EC at z s , were investigated. For this purpose, 3-D numerical simulations of flow and transport were performed for variably saturated, spatially heterogeneous, flow domains located at two different field sites. The sites differ in crop type, irrigation method and in their lithology; these differences, in turn, considerably affect the performance of the proposed schemes, expressed in terms of their ability to reduce solute concentrations that drained below the root zone. Results of the analyses suggest that the proposed data-driven schemes allow the use of low-quality water for irrigation, while minimizing the consumption of high-quality water to a level, which, for given climate, soil, crop, irrigation method, and water quality, may be determined by the allowable nitrate and chloride concentrations in the groundwater. The results of the present study indicate that with respect to the diminution of groundwater contamination by chloride and nitrate, the more data demanding, first scheme is superior the second scheme. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: This paper examines the extent to which regime-like behavior in streamflow time series impacts reservoir operating policy performance. We begin by incorporating a regime state variable into a well-established stochastic dynamic programming model. We then simulate and compare optimized release policies—with and without the regime state variable—to understand how regime shifts affect operating performance in terms of meeting water delivery targets. Our optimization approach uses a hidden Markov model to partition the streamflow time series into a small number of separate regime states. The streamflow persistence structures associated with each state define separate month-to-month streamflow transition probability matrices for computing penalty cost expectations within the optimization procedure. The algorithm generates a four-dimensional array of release decisions conditioned on the within-year time period, reservoir storage state, inflow class, and underlying regime state. Our computational experiment is executed on 99 distinct, hypothetical water supply reservoirs fashioned from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's Hydrologic Reference Stations. Results show that regime-like behavior is a major cause of sub-optimal operations in water supply reservoirs; conventional techniques for optimal policy design may misguide the operator, particularly in regions susceptible to multi-year drought. Stationary streamflow models that allow for regime-like behavior can be incorporated into traditional stochastic optimization models to enhance the flexibility of operations. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Growing population and increased demand for water is causing an increase in dam and reservoir construction in developing nations. When rivers cross international boundaries, the downstream stakeholders often have little knowledge of upstream reservoir operation practices. Satellite remote sensing in the form of radar altimetry and multi-sensor precipitation products can be used as a practical way to provide downstream stakeholders with the fundamentally elusive upstream information on reservoir outflow needed to make important and proactive water management decisions. This study uses a mass balance approach of three hydrologic controls to estimate reservoir outflow from satellite data at monthly and annual time scales: precipitation induced inflow, evaporation, and reservoir storage change. Furthermore, this study explores the importance of each of these hydrologic controls to the accuracy of outflow estimation. The hydrologic controls found to be unimportant could potentially be neglected from similar future studies. Two reservoirs were examined in contrasting regions of the world, the Hungry Horse Reservoir in a mountainous region in northwest U.S. and the Kaptai Reservoir in a low-lying, forested region of Bangladesh. It was found that this mass balance method estimated the annual outflow of both reservoirs with reasonable skill. The estimation of monthly outflow from both reservoirs was however less accurate. The Kaptai basin exhibited a shift in basin behavior resulting in variable accuracy across the 9-year study period. Monthly outflow estimation from Hungry Horse Reservoir was compounded by snow accumulation and melt processes, reflected by relatively low accuracy in summer and fall, when snow processes control runoff. Furthermore, it was found that the important hydrologic controls for reservoir outflow estimation at the monthly time scale differs between the two reservoirs, with precipitation induced inflow being the most important control for the Kaptai Reservoir and storage change being the most important for Hungry Horse Reservoir. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Environmental simulation models, such as precipitation-runoff watershed models, are increasingly used in a deterministic manner for environmental and water resources design, planning, and management. In operational hydrology, simulated responses are now routinely used to plan, design, and manage a very wide class of water resource systems. However, all such models are calibrated to existing data sets and retain some residual error. This residual, typically unknown in practice, is often ignored, implicitly trusting simulated responses as if they are deterministic quantities. In general, ignoring the residuals will result in simulated responses with distributional properties that do not mimic those of the observed responses. This discrepancy has major implications for the operational use of environmental simulation models as is shown here. Both a simple linear model and a distributed-parameter precipitation-runoff model are used to document the expected bias in the distributional properties of simulated responses when the residuals are ignored. The systematic reintroduction of residuals into simulated responses in a manner that produces stochastic output is shown to improve the distributional properties of the simulated responses. Every effort should be made to understand the distributional behavior of simulation residuals and to use environmental simulation models in a stochastic manner. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Excess reactive nitrogen in soils of intensively managed landscapes causes adverse environmental impact, and continues to remain a global concern. Many novel strategies have been developed to provide better management practices and, yet, the problem remains unresolved. The objective of this study is to develop a model to characterize the “age” of inorganic soil-nitrogen (nitrate, and ammonia/ammonium). We use the general theory of age, which provides an assessment of the time elapsed since inorganic nitrogen has been introduced into the soil system. We analyze a corn-corn-soybean rotation, common in the Midwest United States, as an example application. We observe two counter-intuitive results: (1) the mean nitrogen age in the topsoil layer is relatively high; and (2) mean nitrogen age is lower under soybean cultivation compared to corn although no fertilizer is applied for soybean cultivation. The first result can be explained by cation-exchange of ammonium that retards the leaching of nitrogen, resulting in an increase in the mean nitrogen age near the soil surface. The second result arises because the soybean utilizes the nitrogen fertilizer left from the previous year, thereby removing the older nitrogen and reducing mean nitrogen age. Estimating the mean nitrogen age can thus serve as an important tool to disentangle complex nitrogen dynamics by providing a nuanced characterization of the time scales of soil-nitrogen transformation and transport processes. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Anomalous transport is ubiquitous in a wide range of disordered systems, notably in fractured porous formations. We quantitatively identify the structural controls on anomalous tracer transport in a model of a real fractured geological formation that was mapped in an outcrop. The transport, determined by a continuum scale mathematical model, is characterized by breakthrough curves (BTCs) that document anomalous (or “non-Fickian”) transport, which is accounted for by a power-law distribution of local transition times ψ ( t ) within the framework of a continuous time random walk (CTRW). We show that the determination of ψ ( t ) is related to fractures aligned approximately with the macroscopic direction of flow. We establish the dominant role of fracture alignment, and assess the statistics of these fractures by determining a concentration-visitation weighted residence time histogram. We then convert the histogram to a probability density function (pdf) that coincides with the CTRW ψ ( t ) and hence anomalous transport. We show that the permeability of the geological formation hosting the fracture network has a limited effect on the anomalous nature of the transport; rather, it is the fractures transverse to the flow direction that play the major role in forming the long BTC tail associated with anomalous transport. This is a remarkable result, given the complexity of the flow field statistics as captured by concentration transitions. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Regional frequency analysis (RFA) is a well-established methodology to provide an estimate of the flood frequency curve at ungauged (or scarcely gauged) sites. Different RFA approaches exist, depending on the way the information is transferred to the site of interest, but it is not clear in the literature if a specific method systematically outperforms the others. The aim of this study is to provide a framework wherein carrying out the intercomparison by building up a virtual environment based on synthetically generated data. The considered regional approaches include: (i) a unique regional curve for the whole region; (ii) a multiple-region model where homogeneous subregions are determined through cluster analysis; (iii) a Region-of-Influence model which defines a homogeneous subregion for each site; (iv) a spatially-smooth estimation procedure where the parameters of the regional model vary continuously along the space. Virtual environments are generated considering different patterns of heterogeneity, including step change and smooth variations. If the region is heterogeneous, with the parent distribution changing continuously within the region, the spatially-smooth regional approach outperforms the others, with overall errors 10%-50% lower than the other methods. In the case of a step-change, the spatially-smooth and clustering procedures perform similarly if the heterogeneity is moderate, while clustering procedures work better when the step-change is severe. To extend our findings, an extensive sensitivity analysis has been performed to investigate the effect of sample length, number of virtual stations, return period of the predicted quantile, variability of the scale parameter of the parent distribution, number of predictor variables and different parent distribution. Overall, the spatially-smooth approach appears as the most robust approach as its performances are more stable across different patterns of heterogeneity, especially when short records are considered. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Using a multi-century reconstruction of drought, we investigate how rare the 2012-2015 California drought is. A Bayesian approach to a nonstationary, bivariate probabilistic model, including the estimation of Copula parameters is used to assess the time varying return period of the current drought. Both the duration and severity of drought exhibit similar multi-century trends. The period from 800-1200 AD was perhaps more similar to the recent period than the period from 1200 to 1800 AD. The median return period of the recent drought accounting for both duration and severity, varies from approximately 667 to 2652 years, if the model parameters from the different time periods are considered. However, we find that the recent California drought is of unprecedented severity, especially given the relatively modest duration of the drought. The return period of the severity of the recent drought given its 4-year duration is estimated to be nearly 21,000 years. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Distributed temperature sensing has proven a useful technique for geoscientists to obtain spatially distributed temperature data. When studies require high-resolution temperature data in three spatial dimensions, current practices to enhance the spatial resolution do not suffice. For example, double-diffusive phenomena induce sharp and small-scale temperature patterns in water bodies subject to thermohaline gradients. This article presents a novel approach for a 3D dense distributed temperature sensing setup, the design of which can be customized to the required spatial resolution in each dimension. Temperature is measured along fiber-optic cables that can be arranged as needed. In this case, we built a dense cage of very thin (1.6 mm) cables to ensure that interference with flow patterns was minimal. Application in water bodies with double-diffusion induced sharp temperature gradients shows that the setup is well able to capture small-scale temperature patterns and even detects small unsuspected seeps and potential salt-fingers. However, the potential effect of the setup on the flow patterns requires further study. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The empirical proportionality relationship, which indicates that the ratio of cumulative surface runoff and infiltration to their corresponding potentials are equal, is the basis of the extensively used Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) method. The objective of this paper is to provide the physical basis of the SCS-CN method and its proportionality hypothesis from the infiltration excess runoff generation perspective. To achieve this purpose, an analytical solution of Richards' equation is derived for ponded infiltration in shallow water table environment under the following boundary conditions: 1) the soil is saturated at the land surface; and 2) there is a no-flux boundary which moves downward. The solution is established based on the assumptions of negligible gravitational effect, constant soil water diffusivity, and hydrostatic soil moisture profile between the no-flux boundary and water table. Based on the derived analytical solution, the proportionality hypothesis is a reasonable approximation for rainfall partitioning at the early stage of ponded infiltration in areas with a shallow water table for coarse textured soils. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Improving the understanding of how stream flow dynamics are influenced by landscape characteristics, such as soils, vegetation and terrain, is a central endeavor of catchment hydrology. Here we investigate how spatial variability in stream flow is related to landscape characteristics using specific discharge time series from 14 partly nested sub-catchments in the Krycklan basin (0.12 – 68 km 2 ). Multivariate principal component analyses combined with univariate analyses showed that while variability in landscape characteristics and specific discharge were strongly related, the spatial patterns varied with season and wetness conditions. During spring snowmelt and at the annual scale, specific discharge was positively related to the sum of wetland and lake area. During summer, when flows are lowest, specific discharge was negatively related to catchment tree volume, but positively related to deeper sediment deposits and catchment area. The results indicate how more densely forested areas on till soils become relatively drier during summer months, while wet areas and deeper sediment soils maintain a higher summer baseflow. Annual and seasonal differences in specific discharge can therefore be explained to a large extent by expected variability in evapotranspiration fluxes and snow accumulation. These analyses provide an organizing principle for how specific discharge varies spatially across the boreal landscape, and how this variation is manifested for different wetness conditions, seasons and time scales. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: ABSTRACT Capillary pressure ( P c ) – saturation ( S w ) relations are essential for predicting equilibrium and flow of immiscible fluid pairs in soils and deeper geologic formations. In systems that are difficult to measure, behavior is often estimated based on capillary scaling of easily measured P c – S w relations (e.g., air-water, and oil-water), yet the reliability of such approximations needs to be examined. In this study, seventeen sets of brine drainage and imbibition curves were measured with air-brine, decane-brine, and supercritical (sc) CO 2 -brine in homogeneous quartz and carbonate sands, using porous plate systems under ambient (0.1 MPa, 23 ˚C) and reservoir (12.0 MPa, 45 ˚C) conditions. Comparisons between these measurements showed significant differences in residual nonwetting phase saturation, S nw, r . Through applying capillary scaling, changes in interfacial properties were indicated, particularly wettability. With respect to the residual trapping of the nonwetting phases, S nwr , CO2  〉  S nwr , decane  〉  S nwr , air . Decane-brine and scCO 2 -brine P c – S w curves deviated significantly from predictions assuming hydrophilic interactions. Moreover, neither the scaled capillary behavior nor S nw, r for scCO 2 -brine were well represented by decane-brine, apparently because of differences in wettability and viscosities, indicating limitations for using decane (and other organic liquids) as a surrogate fluid in studies intended to apply to geological carbon sequestration. Thus, challenges remain in applying scaling for predicting capillary trapping and multiphase displacement processes across such diverse fields as vadose zone hydrology, enhanced oil recovery, and geologic carbon sequestration. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: Spatially-extensive Arctic stable isotope data are sparse, inhibiting the climatic understanding required to interpret paleoclimate proxy records. To fill this need, we constrained the climatic and physiographic controls on δ 18 O and δD values of stream waters across Alaska and the Yukon to derive interpolated isoscape maps. δ 18 O is strongly correlated to winter temperature parameters and similarity of the surface water line (δ 2 H = 8.0 × δ 18 O + 6.4) to the Global Meteoric Water Line suggests stream waters are a proxy for meteoric precipitation. We observe extreme orographic δ 18 O decreases and a trans-Alaskan continental gradient of -8.3 ‰ 1000 km −1 . Continental gradients are high in coastal zones and low in the interior. Localized δ 18 O increases indicate inland air mass penetration via topographic lows. Using observed δ 18 O/temperature gradients, we show that δ 18 O decreases in a ∼24 ka permafrost ice wedge relative to the late Holocene indicate mean annual and coldest quarter temperature reductions of 8.9 ± 1.7°C and 17.2 ± 3.2°C, respectively. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The paper “Climate and agricultural land use change impacts on streamflow in the upper midwestern United States” by Satish C. Gupta, Andrew C. Kessler, Melinda K. Brown, and Francis Zvomuya (hereafter referred to as Gupta et al.) purports to evaluate “the relative importance of changes in precipitation and LULC (land use, land cover) on streamflow in 29 Hydrologic Unit Code 008 watersheds in the Upper Midwestern United States.” However, as we report here, the approach used by Gupta et al. is wholly inadequate for making such an evaluation. Gupta et al. use strong language to criticize other studies and imply a level of certainty that goes well beyond, and in some cases is entirely unsupported by, the results they have presented. We take this opportunity to point out several critical flaws in their study. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: The reply addresses concerns raised by Belmont et al . [2016] on Gupta et al . [2015] through additional analysis of streamflow vs. precipitation relationships for the Whetstone and the Redwood Rivers and with data on available soil moisture in prechange and postchange periods in the Cottonwood River watershed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: When a contaminant is detected in a drinking well, source location, initial contaminant release time and initial contaminant concentration are, in many cases, unknown; the responsible party may have disappeared and the identification of when and where the contamination happened may become difficult. Although contaminant source identification has been studied extensively in the last decades, we propose —to our knowledge, for the first time— the use of the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF), which has proven to be a powerful algorithm for inverse modeling. The EnKF is tested in a two-dimensional synthetic deterministic aquifer, identifying, satisfactorily, the source location, the release time, and the release concentration, together with an assessment of the uncertainty associated with this identification. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.