Use of a watershed hydrologic model to estimate interbasin groundwater flow in a Costa Rican rainforest

The watershed hydrologic model TOPMODEL was used to estimate interbasin groundwater flow (IGF) into a small lowland rainforest watershed in Costa Rica. IGF is a common hydrological process but often difficult to quantify. Four‐year simulations (2006–2009) using three different model approaches gave estimates of IGF that were very similar to each other (10.1, 10.2, and 9.8 m/year) and to an earlier estimate (10.0 m/year) based on 1998–2002 data from a budget study that did not use a hydrologic simulation model, providing confidence in the new estimates and suggesting each of the three model approaches is viable. Results show no significant temporal variation in IGF during 2006–2009 (or between this period and the earlier study from 1998–2002). Simulations of the 16 consecutive 3‐month periods in 2006–2009 gave 16 values of IGF rate with a mean (10.1 m/year, standard deviation = 0.6 m/year) very similar to the estimates above from the 4‐year simulations. This suggests the modified version of TOPMODEL can be used to model stream discharge and estimate IGF for sub‐annual time periods during which change in water storage is not necessarily equal to zero. Thus, simple watershed models may be used to estimate IGF based on even relatively short calibration periods, making such models useful tools in the study of this widespread hydrological process that affects water and chemical fluxes and budgets but is often difficult and costly to quantify. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimating groundwater recharge for a freshwater lens in an arid region: Formative and stability assessment

The formation of subsurface freshwater lenses on top of brackish groundwater is a fascinating hydrologic phenomenon that creates groundwater supplies of great potential value in arid regions. Information on the recharge quantity and mechanism of these lenses is both scarce and uncertain. This study examines the formation and macroscale stability of the Rawdatain freshwater lens in Kuwait, for which significant pre-development data are available. The Rawdatain is a large (150 million m³) subsurface freshwater lens overlying brackish groundwater compared to the other freshwater lenses in the Arabian Peninsula. In this study, a three-dimensional (3D) density-dependent groundwater flow model is tested against the following data targets to estimate long-term diffuse and focused groundwater recharge: (i) groundwater head, (ii) total dissolved solids (TDS) groundwater concentration, (iii) volume and vertical thickness of stored groundwater of three different water quality TDS ranges (0–700, 700–1000 and 1000–2000 mg/L) and (iv) geometrical shape features of the lens along cross-sections. To better represent the spatial variation in TDS, six different recharge zones were assigned to allocate diffuse and focused recharge conditions. Twelve recharge rate scenarios, encompassing a wide range of feasible long-term average annual recharge values (200,000–5,000,000 m³/year), were tested against the multiple targets and compared with the groundwater age of the Rawdatain lens. Based on comparison with data targets, the long-term average annual recharge is estimated to be 500,000 m³/year. Scenarios of reduced recharge, which may occur due to changes in land-use or climate, demonstrate the extremely slow response of the lens, which is in agreement with the slow development and formation of the lens (>2,000 years). Within a 100-year time frame, a 50% reduction in annual recharge reduces the lens volumes by 21, 17 and 9% for the three water quality categories, respectively. This study demonstrates the stability of freshwater lenses in arid regions and also provides methodology for similar focused rainfall recharge freshwater lenses.     

Regional‐scale mapping of groundwater discharge zones using thermal satellite imagery

Mapping groundwater discharge zones at broad spatial scales remains a challenge, particularly in data sparse regions. We applied a regional scale mapping approach based on thermal remote sensing to map discharge zones in a complex watershed with a broad diversity of geological materials, land cover and topographic variation situated within the Prairie Parkland of northern Alberta, Canada. We acquired winter thermal imagery from the USGS Landsat archive to demonstrate the utility of this data source for applications that can complement both scientific and management programs. We showed that the thermally determined potential discharge areas were corroborated with hydrological (spring locations) and chemical (conservative tracers of groundwater) data. This study demonstrates how thermal remote sensing can form part of a comprehensive mapping framework to investigate groundwater resources over broad spatial scales. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A multi‐storage groundwater concept for the SWAT model to emphasize nonlinear groundwater dynamics in lowland catchments

Hydrological models are useful tools to analyze present and future conditions of water quantity and quality. The integrated modelling of water and nutrients needs an adequate representation of the different discharge components. In common with many lowlands, groundwater contribution to the discharge in the North German lowlands is a key factor for a reasonable representation of the water balance, especially in low flow periods. Several studies revealed that the widely used Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model performs poorly for low flow periods. This paper deals with the extension of the groundwater module of the SWAT model to enhance low flow representation. The current two‐storage concept of SWAT was further developed to a three‐storage concept. This was realized due to modification of the groundwater module by splitting the active groundwater storage into a fast and a slow contributing aquifer. The results of this study show that the groundwater module with three storages leads to a good prediction of the overall discharge especially for the recession limbs and the low flow periods. The improved performance is reflected in the signature measures for the mid‐segment (percent bias ?2.4% vs ?15.9%) and the low segment (percent bias 14.8% vs 46.8%) of the flow duration curve. The three‐storage groundwater module is more process oriented than the original version due to the introduction of a fast and a slow groundwater flow component. The three‐storage version includes a modular approach, because groundwater storages can be activated or deactivated independently for subbasin and hydrological response unit level. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sea‐level rise impact on fresh groundwater lenses in two‐layer small islands

The fresh groundwater lenses (FGLs) of small islands can be highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, including sea‐level rise (SLR). Many real cases of atoll or sandy islands involve two‐layer hydrogeological conceptualizations. In this paper, the influential factors that affect FGLs in two‐layer small islands subject to SLR are investigated. An analytical solution describing FGLs in circular islands, composed of two geological layers, is developed for the simplified case of steady‐state and sharp‐interface conditions. An application of the developed model is demonstrated to estimate the FGL thickness of some real‐world islands by comparison with existing FGL thickness data. Furthermore, numerical modelling is applied to extend the analysis to consider dispersion effects and to confirm comparable results for both cases. Sensitivity analyses are used to assess the importance of land‐surface inundation caused by SLR, relative to other parameters (i.e. thickness of aquifer layers, hydraulic conductivity, recharge rate and land‐surface slope) that influence the FGL. Dimensionless parameters are used to generalize the findings. The results demonstrate that land‐surface inundation has a considerable impact on a FGL influenced by SLR, as expected, although the FGL volume is more sensitive to recharge, aquifer thickness and hydraulic conductivity than SLR impacts, considering typical parameter ranges. The methodology presented in this study provides water resource managers with a rapid‐assessment tool for evaluating the likely impacts of SLR and accompanying LSI on FGLs.     

Transient streambed hydraulic conductivity in channel and bar environments,Loup River,Nebraska

Streambed hydraulic conductivity (K) and vertical K (K _v) are key controls on groundwater and surface water exchange and biogeochemical fluxes through the hyporheic zone, but drivers of transient hydraulic properties in different fluvial environments are poorly understood. This study combines hydrogeology, geophysics, and sedimentology to reveal mechanisms of K and K _v transience in the upper 0.5 m of a sandy streambed during low discharge. Hydraulic tests (44 slug tests, 130 falling-head permeameter tests) and 130 grain-size analyses were repeated three times over 8 weeks on a 1,200 m² grid spanning: (a) a channel with continuously flowing water and mobile bed load; (b) an adjacent mid-channel bar that was stationary and infrequently submerged. Aerial photographs and ground-penetrating radar show scour and complete reworking of fluvial sediments in the channel. Bar sediments below the water table remained immobile, but infrequent flows of moderate discharge reworked the uppermost few centimetres of the bar top. Despite differences in sediment mobility and stream flow characteristics across environments, K and K _v exhibited order-of-magnitude differences in spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability in both the channel and bar. Mean K and K _v values in the channel were comparatively stable over time. In the immobile bar, mean K declined 20% and K _v declined 26% after increased discharge temporarily inundated the bar. Grain-size distributions were steady across both environments over time, but repeat geophysical surveys of the bar show a decrease in electrical conductivity, likely from porosity reduction. These findings suggest that sediment dynamics and stream flow characteristics in different streambed environments are important drivers of K transience during low discharge conditions. Specifically, pore clogging can be an important mechanism of transience over short durations (weeks to months) in immobile sediments subject to infrequent flows and minor reworking.     

Collaborative Governance and Conflict Management: Lessons Learned and Good Practices from a Case Study in the Amazon Basin

Abstract

Given the linkages between natural resources and social conflicts, evidence increasingly shows that successful natural resource management requires conflict mitigation and prevention. However, there may be a gap in practice between knowing what processes and tools need to be used to manage conservation conflicts and how to actually implement them. We present learning from a practice-based case study of conflict management in the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon that aimed to develop natural resource governance institutions and build stakeholder capacity, including of indigenous groups, to navigate existing conflict resolution mechanisms. Through applying good practices in conservation conflict management and collaborative governance, we generated important lessons on the practical considerations involved in collaborative conservation. These lessons, while specific to our case, could be applied to a variety of protected areas facing complex social-ecological systems dynamics and wicked problems.     

Spectral analysis of continuous redox data reveals geochemical dynamics near the stream–aquifer interface

Changes in streamflow and water table elevation influence oxidation–reduction (redox) conditions near river–aquifer interfaces, with potentially important consequences for solute fluxes and biogeochemical reaction rates. Although continuous measurements of groundwater chemistry can be arduous, in situ sensors reveal chemistry dynamics across a wide range of timescales. We monitored redox potential in an aquifer adjacent to a tidal river and used spectral and wavelet analyses to link redox responses to hydrologic perturbations within the bed and banks. Storms perturb redox potential within both the bed and banks over timescales of days to weeks. Tides drive semidiurnal oscillations in redox potential within the streambed that are absent in the banks. Wavelet analysis shows that tidal redox oscillations in the bed are greatest during late summer (wavelet magnitude of 5.62 mV) when river stage fluctuations are on the order of 70 cm and microbial activity is relatively high. Tidal redox oscillations diminish during the winter (wavelet magnitude of 2.73 mV) when river stage fluctuations are smaller (on the order of 50 cm) and microbial activity is presumably low. Although traditional geochemical observations are often limited to summer baseflow conditions, in situ redox sensing provides continuous, high‐resolution chemical characterization of the subsurface, revealing transport and reaction processes across spatial and temporal scales in aquifers.     

Identification of groundwater mean transit times of precipitation and riverbank infiltration by two‐component lumped parameter models

Groundwater transit time is an essential hydrologic metric for groundwater resources management. However, especially in tropical environments, studies on the transit time distribution (TTD) of groundwater infiltration and its corresponding mean transit time (mTT) have been extremely limited due to data sparsity. In this study, we primarily use stable isotopes to examine the TTDs and their mTTs of both vertical and horizontal infiltration at a riverbank infiltration area in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD), representative of the tropical climate in Asian monsoon regions. Precipitation, river water, groundwater, and local ponding surface water were sampled for 3 to 9 years and analysed for stable isotopes (δ¹⁸O and δ²H), providing a unique data set of stable isotope records for a tropical region. We quantified the contribution that the two sources contributed to the local shallow groundwater by a novel concept of two‐component lumped parameter models (LPMs) that are solved using δ¹⁸O records. The study illustrates that two‐component LPMs, in conjunction with hydrological and isotopic measurements, are able to identify subsurface flow conditions and water mixing at riverbank infiltration systems. However, the predictive skill and the reliability of the models decrease for locations farther from the river, where recharge by precipitation dominates, and a low‐permeable aquitard layer above the highly permeable aquifer is present. This specific setting impairs the identifiability of model parameters. For river infiltration, short mTTs (<40 weeks) were determined for sites closer to the river (<200 m), whereas for the precipitation infiltration, the mTTs were longer (>80 weeks) and independent of the distance to the river. The results not only enhance the understanding of the groundwater recharge dynamics in the VMD but also suggest that the highly complex mechanisms of surface–groundwater interaction can be conceptualized by exploiting two‐component LPMs in general. The model concept could thus be a powerful tool for better understanding both the hydrological functioning of mixing processes and the movement of different water components in riverbank infiltration systems.     

基于三维四面体模型的西藏资源环境承载力综合评价

资源环境承载力定量评价与综合计量是资源环境承载力研究由分类走向综合的关键技术环节。本文从系统角度出发,提出了“人居环境适宜性分区——资源承载力限制性分类——社会经济发展适应性分等——资源环境承载力警示性分级”的资源环境承载力综合评价的研究思路与技术路线,构建了具有平衡态意义的资源环境承载力综合评价的三维四面体模型,对区域资源环境承载力监测预警机制的建立具有清晰的政策指导意义。基于上述模型方法,以公里格网为基础,以分县为基本单元,开展了西藏自治区的资源环境承载力综合评价。研究表明,西藏3/4左右土地、4/5以上人口所在的县域资源环境综合承载力处于盈余或平衡状态,资源环境综合承载状态良好;人居环境以不适宜和临界适宜为主要特征,社会经济发展水平普遍滞后,人居环境自然适宜性和社会经济发展水平在较大程度上限制了西藏资源环境承载力的发挥及其提升。