Abstract

From 2012 to 2016, a five year intensive drought occurred in the Californian Sierra Nevada. We use this drought period as an opportunity to investigate how catchment water storage, mixing and transit times changes from wet to dry conditions using long term datasets of river discharge, evapotranspiration, water quality, and multiple cosmogenic radioactive isotopes. Characteristic features of the test catchment (4.6 km2 , altitude 1660-2117 m) include a thick (>5m) unsaturated zone in deeply weathered granite mountain soils, snow melt and events of high intensity rainfall, dry summers and numerous wetland meadows along the stream.

Our data and model analysis suggest that under drought conditions, river flow predominantly consist of deep groundwater tapped by deeply incised sections of the stream, while the wetlands hold on to their water just below the root system of its shallow rooting vegetation. In contrast, during wet periods, most runoff is generated on the flat riparian wetland meadows, while the regional groundwater system slowly refills itself as water makes its way through the thick unsaturated zones. Antecedent wet or dry years play an crucial role as antecedent wet years cause a substantial regional groundwater flow towards the riparian wetlands, filling up the riparian wetlands and yielding a much stronger discharge response of the wetlands to rainfall events than under antecedent dry years This interaction between the regional groundwater system and the local wetland systems weakens as the drought progresses and regional groundwater flow to the wetlands lessens.

Although, due to the wet events in 2016-2017, the catchment fills up rapidly to pre-drought conditions, we show that water transit times and therefore likely the water quality will contain drought signs for several years to come.

This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL-ABS- XXXXXX

Citation

Van Der Velde, Y.; Visser, A.; Thaw, M.; Safeeq, M. (2017): Water Storage, Mixing and Transit Times During a Multiyear Drought. Fall Meeting, American Geophysical Union, December 2017. Abstract H23E-1731..