Using stable isotope tracers to identify hydrological flow paths, residence times and landscape controls in a mesoscale catchment

P. Rodgers (1) , C. Soulsby (1) , S. Waldron (2) , D. Tetzlaff (1)

1 Department of Geography and Environment
2 SUERC - Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre

?¹⁸O tracer measurements of precipitation and stream waters were used to investigate hydrological flow paths and residence times at nested spatial scales in the mesoscale (233 km² River Feugh catchment in the northeast of Scotland over the 2001-2002 hydrological year. Precipitation ?¹⁸O exhibited strong seasonal variation, which although significantly damped by catchment mixing processes, was reflected in stream water outputs at six sampling sites. This allowed ?¹⁸O variations to be used to infer the relative influence of soil-derived storm flows with a seasonally variable isotopic signature, and groundwater of more constant isotopic composition. Periodic regression analysis was then used to examine the sub-catchment differences in the mixing of these two main hydrological sources processes more quantitatively, using an exponential flow model to provide preliminary estimates of mean stream water residence times, which varied between 0.4-2.9 years. This showed that the effects of increasing scale on estimated mean stream water residence time was minimal beyond the smallest (ca. 1 km² headwater catchment scale. Instead, the interaction of catchment soil cover and topography acted as the dominant influence. Responsive hydrological pathways, associated with peat soils in the headwater sub-catchments, produced seasonally variable ?¹⁸O signatures in runoff with short mean residence times (0.4-0.8 years). In contrast, areas dominated by more freely draining soils and larger groundwater storage in shallow aquifers appear to provide effective mixing and damping of variable precipitation inputs implying longer residence times (1.4-2.9 years). These insights from ?¹⁸O measurements extend the hydrological understanding of the Feugh catchment gained from previous geochemical tracer studies, and demonstrate the utility of isotope tracers in investigating the interaction of hydrological processes and catchment characteristics at the mesoscale.

Domaines: Interfaces continentales, environnement; Océan, Atmosphère; Sciences de la Terre

P. Rodgers, C. Soulsby, S. Waldron, D. Tetzlaff. Using stable isotope tracers to identify hydrological flow paths, residence times and landscape controls in a mesoscale catchment. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2005, 2 (1), pp.1-35. ⟨hal-00298616⟩