Flow frequency responses to hardwood-to-grass conversion and subsequent succession

A 8.9 ha (22 acre) catchment at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in western North Carolina was cleared of hardwood forest in 1958 and 1959 and seeded to Kentucky 31 fescue grass in 1959 and 1960. Grass production was high in years when fertilizer was applied and water yield was very similar to that expected from the original forest cover. as grass production declined, so water yields rose, with important increases in the magnitude of both low frequency flows and, particularly, in baseflow. in 1967 and 1968, when all vegetation was deadened in the catchment, the discharge levels in all flow frequency classes were higher. Natural revegetation was then allowed and water yields gradually declined towards the expected level, although there remained a tendency for winter flows to remain higher, and for summer flows to be lower than expected. This paper updates the earlier work of Hibbert (1969) and uses flow duration curves to extend his results.     

Are spatial patterns of soil moisture at plot scales generalisable across catchments,climates, and other characteristics? A synthesis of synoptic soil moisture across the Mid-Atlantic

The spatial variation of soil moisture over very small areas (<100 m²) can have nonlinear impacts on cycling and flux rates resulting in bias if it is not considered, but measuring this variation is difficult over extensive temporal and spatial scales. Most studies examining spatial variation of soil moisture were conducted at hillslope (0.01 km²) to multi-catchment spatial scales (1000 km²). They found the greatest variation at mid wetness levels and the smallest variation at wet and dry wetness levels forming a concave down relationship. There is growing evidence that concave down relationships formed between spatial variation of soil moisture and average soil moisture are consistent across spatial scales spanning several orders of magnitude, but more research is needed at very small, plot scales (<100 m²). The goal of this study was to characterise spatial variation in shallow soil moisture at the plot scale by relating the mean of measurements collected in a plot to the standard deviation (SD). We combined data from a previous study with thousands of new soil moisture measurements from 212 plots in eight catchments distributed across the US Mid-Atlantic Region to (1) test for a generalisable mean–SD relationship at plot scales, (2) characterise how landcover, land use, season, and hillslope position contribute to differences in mean–SD relationships, and (3) use these generalised mean–SD relationships to quantify their impacts on catchment scale nitrification and denitrification potential. Our study found that 98% of all measurements formed a generalised mean–SD relationship like those observed at hillslope and catchment spatial scales. The remaining 2% of data comprised a mean–SD relationship with greater spatial variation that originated from two riparian plots reported in a previous study. Incorporating the generalised mean–SD relationship into estimates of nitrification and denitrification potential revealed strong bias that was even greater when incorporating mean–SD observations from the two riparian plots with significantly greater spatial variation.     

Sources of uncertainty in estimating stream solute export from headwater catchments at three sites

Uncertainty in the estimation of hydrologic export of solutes has never been fully evaluated at the scale of a small‐watershed ecosystem. We used data from the Gomadansan Experimental Forest, Japan, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, USA, and Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, USA, to evaluate many sources of uncertainty, including the precision and accuracy of measurements, selection of models, and spatial and temporal variation. Uncertainty in the analysis of stream chemistry samples was generally small but could be large in relative terms for solutes near detection limits, as is common for ammonium and phosphate in forested catchments. Instantaneous flow deviated from the theoretical curve relating height to discharge by up to 10% at Hubbard Brook, but the resulting corrections to the theoretical curve generally amounted to <0.5% of annual flows. Calibrations were limited to low flows; uncertainties at high flows were not evaluated because of the difficulties in performing calibrations during events. However, high flows likely contribute more uncertainty to annual flows because of the greater volume of water that is exported during these events. Uncertainty in catchment area was as much as 5%, based on a comparison of digital elevation maps with ground surveys. Three different interpolation methods are used at the three sites to combine periodic chemistry samples with streamflow to calculate fluxes. The three methods differed by <5% in annual export calculations for calcium, but up to 12% for nitrate exports, when applied to a stream at Hubbard Brook for 1997–2008; nitrate has higher weekly variation at this site. Natural variation was larger than most other sources of uncertainty. Specifically, coefficients of variation across streams or across years, within site, for runoff and weighted annual concentrations of calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, sulphate, chloride, and silicate ranged from 5 to 50% and were even higher for nitrate. Uncertainty analysis can be used to guide efforts to improve confidence in estimated stream fluxes and also to optimize design of monitoring programmes. © 2014 The Authors. Hydrological Processes published John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.