Measurement of wetland hydroperiod using harmonic analysis

Nuttle, William K.

doi:10.1007/bf03160720

Cited by 28 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…While there is considerable evidence for how range in water depth affects plants (Leira and Cantonati, 2008) there are fewer studies that have addressed this for animals. In Everglades National Park, wood stork nest failure was more likely to occur in years with lower hydroperiod amplitude because of less effective concentration of prey fish (Nuttle, 1997). This was also support by more recent work showing nesting effort for wood storks, white ibises, and great egrets in years when amplitude was high and days of rising water levels were low (Botson and Gawlik, unpublished data).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

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Fluctuating water depths affect American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) body condition in the Everglades, Florida, USA

Brandt

Beauchamp

Jeffery

et al. 2016

Ecological Indicators

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Successful restoration of wetland ecosystems requires knowledge of wetland hydrologic patterns and an understanding of how those patterns affect wetland plant and animal populations. Within the Everglades, Florida, USA restoration, an applied science strategy including conceptual ecological models linking drivers to indicators is being used to organize current scientific understanding to support restoration efforts. A key driver of the ecosystem affecting the distribution and abundance of organisms is the timing, distribution, and volume of water flows that result in water depth patterns across the landscape. American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) are one of the ecological indicators being used to assess Everglades restoration

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

“…Higher fluctuations should result in higher productivity and higher alligator body condition. Nuttle (1997) and Botson and Gawlik (In Review) found positive relationships between wading bird nesting success and harmonic amplitude.…”

Section: Rangementioning

confidence: 96%

Fluctuating water depths affect American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) body condition in the Everglades, Florida, USA

Brandt

Beauchamp

Jeffery

et al. 2016

Ecological Indicators

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“…In three successive growing seasons, variability in the controlling factor of precipitation and buffering of geomorphic position (connection to streamflow) resulted in distinct hydroperiods for the three studied fens. Our three years of growing season water table data, in addition to sporadic winter water level measurements (data not shown), were not extensive enough to compute significant hydroperiod statistics ( sensu Nuttle's (1997) harmonic mean approach). Nor were our data continuous enough to perform a proper analysis of crossing properties of the water table ( sensu Bras & Rodriguez‐Iturbe, 1994).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extreme variability of water table dynamics in temperate calcareous fens: Implications for biodiversity

Duval

Waddington

2011

Hydrological Processes

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Abstract:Calcareous fens are minerotrophic peatlands with very high species diversity, and maintenance of the water table is assumed to be a key contributor to this diversity. However, this assumption is based on limited study of fen water table dynamics. Here we monitor water table fluctuation in distributed locations across three calcareous fens differing in hydrogeomorphic setting for three growing seasons. Water table position was extremely variable with absolute ranges of 89, >100, and >118 cm in the Riparian, Trough and Basin Fens, respectively, and was controlled by landscape position and weather variability. Areas adjacent to a second-order stream experienced the least water table fluctuation, while the Basin Fen, at >75 m from a surface water connection, was very prone to year-to-year precipitation differences. Mean and median water table values were found to be poor indicators of biologically relevant hydroperiods. We introduce the term 'duration of initial growing season saturation' as a potentially more useful statistic to relate to plant species distribution. Across the studied fens, this duration ranged from 1 to 14 weeks from the start of the growing season. The water table resided below the ground surface for between 0 and 22 weeks of the growing season across the calcareous fens and study period. These findings impart great differences in the development of oxidized rooting depths. Our results demonstrate that there is much more variation in calcareous fen hydrology than previously reported, and this variability has important implications for fen vegetation patterning and management.

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“…The challenge in assessing the hydroperiod for a particular site is to determine an appropriate statistic or set of statistics to characterize the temporal variability of the hydrograph. In addition to the usual parametric and non-parametric measures of location (mean, median) and scale (standard deviation, interquartile range), we attempted to use harmonic analysis as described elsewhere (e.g., Long and Nestler 1996;Nuttle 1997). However, the hydrographs did not show statistically significant periodic components over the single growing season, perhaps due to the erratic nature of the hydrographs over shorter time scales (i.e., hourly and dally scales compared to monthly and annual scales).…”

Section: Characterizing Hydrologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing hydrology and the importance of ground-water discharge in natural and constructed wetlands

1999

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Although considered the most important component for the establishment and persistence of wetlands, hydrology has been hard to characterize and linkages between hydrology and other environmental conditions are often poorly understood. In this work, methods for characterizing a wetland's hydrology from hydrographs were developed, and the importance of ground water to the physical and geochemical conditions in the root zone was investigated. Detailed sampling of nearly continuous hydrographs showed that sites with greater ground-water discharge had higher water tables and more stable hydrographs, Subsampling of the continuous hydrograph failed to characterize the sites correctly, even though the wetland complex is located in a strong regional ground-water-discharge area. By comparing soil-moisture-potential measurements to the water-table hydrograph at one site, we noted that the amount of root-zone saturation was not necessarily driven by the water-table hydrograph but can be a result of other soil parameters (i.e., soil texture and associated capillary fringe). Ground-water discharge was not a significant determinant of maximum or average temperatures in the root zone. High ground-water discharge was associated with earliest date of thaw and shortest period of time that the root zone was frozen, however. Finally, the direction and magnitude of shallow ground-water flow was found to affect the migration and importance of a geochemical species. Areas of higher ground-water discharge had less downward penetration of CO~ generated in the root zone. In contrast, biotically derived CO: was able to penetrate the deeper ground-water system in areas of groundwater recharge. Although ground-water flows are difficult to characterize, understanding these components is critical to the success of wetland restoration and creation efforts.

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Measurement of wetland hydroperiod using harmonic analysis

Cited by 28 publications

References 8 publications

Fluctuating water depths affect American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) body condition in the Everglades, Florida, USA

Fluctuating water depths affect American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) body condition in the Everglades, Florida, USA

Extreme variability of water table dynamics in temperate calcareous fens: Implications for biodiversity

Characterizing hydrology and the importance of ground-water discharge in natural and constructed wetlands

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