Ressi experimental catchment: Ecohydrological research in the Italian <scp>pre‐Alps</scp>

Zuecco, Giulia; Marchina, Chiara; Gelmini, Ylenia; Amin, Anam; Meerveld, H. J. van; Penna, Daniele; Borga, Marco

doi:10.1002/hyp.14095

Cited by 9 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Samples from beech (Fagus sylvatica) and chestnut (Castanea sativa) trees were collected in the 2.4 ha Ressi catchment in the Italian pre-Alps (Fig. 1) (Zuecco et al, 2014(Zuecco et al, , 2021. The catchment is located at the foothills of the eastern Italian Alps (elevation range: 598-721 m a.s.l.)…”

Section: Ressimentioning

confidence: 99%

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A comparative study of plant water extraction methods for isotopic analyses: Scholander-type pressure chamber vs. cryogenic vacuum distillation

Zuecco

Amin

Frentress

et al. 2022

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Recent tracer-based studies using stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen showed that different methods for extracting water from plant tissues can return different isotopic compositions due to the presence of organic compounds and because they extract different plant water domains. One of the most used methods to extract plant water is the cryogenic vacuum distillation (CVD), which tends to extract total plant water. Conversely, the Scholander-type pressure chamber (SPC), which is commonly used by tree physiologists to measure water potential in plant tissues and determine plant water stress, is expected to extract only the more mobile plant water (i.e., xylem and inter-cellular water). However, only few studies reported the application of SPC to extract plant water for isotopic analyses, and therefore, inter-method comparisons between SPC and CVD are of great value. In this work, we analyzed the variability in the isotopic composition of plant water extracted by SPC and CVD, also considering the potential variability in the isotopic signature of the plant water extracted by CVD from various tissues (i.e., leaves, twig without bark, twig with bark, twig close to the trunk of the tree, and wood core) and from different plant species (i.e., alder, apple, chestnut, and beech). The extraction of plant water by SPC is simple, can be carried out in the field, and it does not require specific laboratory work as in the case of CVD. However, the main limitation of SPC is the very small water volume that can be extracted from the lignified twigs under water stress conditions compared to CVD. Our results indicated that plant water extracted by SPC and CVD were significantly different. The difference in the isotopic composition obtained by the two extraction methods was smaller in the beech samples compared to alder, apple, and chestnut samples. The isotopic signature of alder, apple, and chestnut plant water extracted by SPC was more enriched in δ2H and δ18O, respectively, than the samples obtained by CVD. We conclude that plant water extraction by SPC is not an alternative for CVD as SPC mostly extracts the mobile plant water, whereas CVD tends to retrieve all water stored in the sampled tissue from both living and dead cells. However, studies aiming to quantify the relative contribution of the soil water sources to transpiration should rely more on the isotopic composition of xylem water (which is theoretically sampled by SPC) than the isotopic composition of total plant water (sampled by CVD), which also contains a fraction of water that could be stored in plant tissues for a longer time.

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Section: Ressimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The mean annual temperature is 9.7 • C; on average, the minimum monthly temperature is in January (1.2 • C) and the maximum in July (18.7 • C). The top 10 cm of the soil has a sandy clay loam texture; deeper in the profile, the soil has a sandy clay texture (Penna et al, 2015;Zuecco et al, 2021).…”

Section: Ressimentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparative study of plant water extraction methods for isotopic analyses: Scholander-type pressure chamber vs. cryogenic vacuum distillation

Zuecco

Amin

Frentress

et al. 2022

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…In Europe, few multi-year isotope datasets have been published so far. Several years of isotope measurements are available at weekly frequency for 23 Swiss catchments 14 , at 7-hourly and weekly frequency at Plynlimon, Wales 5 , at daily frequency at the Scottish Bruntland Burn catchment 15 , at weekly frequency at the German Wüstebach catchment 16 , and at daily and weekly frequency for the Italian Ressi catchment 17 .…”

Section: Background and Summarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Four years of daily stable water isotope data in stream water and precipitation from three Swiss catchments

et al. 2022

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Time series of the natural isotopic composition (2H, 18O) of precipitation and streamwater can provide important insights into ecohydrological phenomena at the catchment scale. However, multi-year, high-frequency isotope datasets are generally scarce, limiting our ability to study highly dynamic short-term ecohydrological processes. Here we present four years of daily isotope measurements in streamwater and precipitation at the Alp catchment (area 47 km2) in Central Switzerland and two of its tributaries (0.7 km2 and 1.6 km2). This data set reveals short-term responses of streamflow isotopes to precipitation events, which otherwise remain obscured when isotopes are sampled weekly or monthly. The observations span the period June 2015 through May 2019, during which several hydrometeorologic extreme events occurred, including a very dry summer in 2018 and below-average snow accumulation in winter 2016/2017. In addition, we provide daily time series of key hydrometeorological variables that, in combination with the isotope data, can be useful for assessing the robustness of ecohydrological models.

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Section: Study Site and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Elevation ranges from 598 to 721 m a.s.l., whereas the average slope is 31° and the main aspect is west (Zuecco et al, 2021). The climate is humid temperate with average annual precipitation of 2160 mm and a mean annual temperature of 10.5°C (period 2012–2020), varying from an average of 1.8°C in January to 19.2°C in July (measured at a weather station 2.3 km away from the catchment, Zuecco et al, 2021). The mean annual streamflow is 0.84 L/s (period 2012–2020) and the mean annual potential evapotraspiration is 672 mm (period 2012–2020) computed by the Hargreaves equation (Hargreaves & Samani, 1982) in the period 2012–2018 and by Penman‐Monteith equation (Monteith, 1965) in the period 2018–2020.…”

Section: Study Site and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hysteresis in streamflow‐water table relation provides a new classification system of rainfall‐runoff events

Gelmini

Zuecco

Zaramella

et al. 2022

Hydrological Processes

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Rainfall-runoff event types can be used to better understand the hydrological functioning of catchments. In this study, we propose a framework to characterize and classify runoff events relying on the hysteresis analysis of the relation between streamflow (independent variable) and depth to water table (dependent variable). We evaluated hysteresis for 112 rainfall-runoff events occurred in the period 2012-2016 in a small forested catchment in the Italian Pre-Alps. Three main groups of rainfall-runoff events were identified, each associated with specific hydro-meteorological characteristics of the events. A first group, identified by a faster response of streamflow compared to the groundwater level (which led to a clockwise hysteretic loop), was characterized by dry antecedent conditions, short rainfall events, low streamflow peaks and small runoff coefficients. A second group had characteristics similar to the first group, that is, faster response of streamflow compared to the groundwater level (clockwise hysteretic loop), but on average displayed a narrower hysteretic loop. A third group, identified by a faster response of the groundwater level compared to streamflow (which led to an anticlockwise loop), was characterized by wet antecedent conditions, long rainfall events, high streamflow peaks and large runoff coefficients. Results showed statistically significant differences among the groups, corroborated by an analysis based on environmental tracers ( 2 H and electrical conductivity). This study shows how the analysis of the hysteretic relation between streamflow and depth to water table can be used for grouping rainfall-runoff events and to better identify the catchment's hydrological response to rainfall inputs.

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Ressi experimental catchment: Ecohydrological research in the Italian pre‐Alps

Cited by 9 publications

References 13 publications

A comparative study of plant water extraction methods for isotopic analyses: Scholander-type pressure chamber vs. cryogenic vacuum distillation

A comparative study of plant water extraction methods for isotopic analyses: Scholander-type pressure chamber vs. cryogenic vacuum distillation

Four years of daily stable water isotope data in stream water and precipitation from three Swiss catchments

Hysteresis in streamflow‐water table relation provides a new classification system of rainfall‐runoff events

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