Using stable isotopes to resolve transit times and travel routes of river water: a case study from southern Finland

Niinikoski, Paula; Hendriksson, Nina; Karhu, Juha A.

doi:10.1080/10256016.2015.1107553

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The majority of δ 18 O Q values are in the range between −10‰ and −7‰, with the exception of δ 18 O Q values being above −5‰ in the catchment draining an artificial lake in a former mining area (id 86, Figure ; and orange filled diamonds in Figure b). In this case, δ 18 O Q values do not reflect the long‐term mean of δ 18 O P ; instead, they are shifted toward more enriched values due to evaporative effects in the artificial lake (Niinikoski et al, ; Soulsby et al, ). Mapped onto a dual‐isotope plot, the local meteoric water line has a slope of 7.3 and thus plots close to the global meteoric waterline.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Patterns of Water Age: Using Young Water Fractions to Improve the Characterization of Transit Times in Contrasting Catchments

Lutz

Krieg

Müller

et al. 2018

Water Resources Research

108

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Transit time distributions (TTDs) are crucial descriptors of flow and transport processes in catchments, which can be determined from stable water isotope data. Recently, the young water fraction (F yw ) has been introduced as an additional metric derivable from seasonal isotope cycles. In this study, we calculated F yw and TTDs using monthly isotope data from 24 contrasting subcatchments in a mesoscale catchment (3,300 km 2 ) in Germany. F yw ranged from 0.01 to 0.27 (mean = 0.11) and was smallest in mountainous catchments. Assuming gamma-shaped TTDs, we determined stationary TTDs with the convolution integral method for each subcatchment. The convolution integral was first calibrated against the isotope data only (i.e., traditional calibration) and, second, using a multiobjective calibration with the F yw estimates as an additional constraint. This yielded largely differing TTD parameters even for neighboring catchments, with F yw values below 0.1 generally involving a delayed peak in TTDs (i.e., gamma-distribution shape parameter > 1). While the traditional calibration resulted in large uncertainties in TTD parameters, these uncertainties were reduced with the multiobjective calibration, thereby improving the assessment of mean transit times (2 years on average, ranging between 9.6 months and 5.6 years). This highlights the need for uncertainty assessment when using simple isotope models and shows that the traditional calibration might not yield an optimum solution in that it may give a TTD nonconsistent with F yw . Given the robustness of F yw estimates, isotope models should thus aim at accurately describing both F yw and measured isotope data in order to improve the description of flow and transport in catchments.Plain Language Summary Information on the age of river water is crucial for assessing the vulnerability of rivers to weather extremes and pollution. The age of river water is defined as the time that water has spent underground after rainfall infiltration and before ending up in the river. The probability distribution of river water age can be determined using environmental tracers, which are tracers that naturally occur in the system such as stable water isotopes. In this study, we used isotope models to analyze time series of stable water isotopes in rainfall and streamwater measured in 24 subcatchments of the Bode catchment in central Germany. We found that the mean age of river water ranges between 9.6 months and 5.6 years depending on catchment characteristics such as climate and soil type. Moreover, river water with an age of below 2 to 3 months accounts for between 1% and 27% of the entire age distribution. We demonstrate how to use this information on young river water to constrain other metrics such as the mean water age. We suggest that this method is valuable for future studies using environmental tracers and models to determine water age in catchments.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial Patterns of Water Age: Using Young Water Fractions to Improve the Characterization of Transit Times in Contrasting Catchments

Lutz

Krieg

Müller

et al. 2018

Water Resources Research

108

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“…The amplitude damping method applied to rainfall and river isotopes is an alternative method for computing the mean water transit time of river water in a simple system (Niinikoski et al, 2016), based on the assumption that river water is derived directly from precipitation. The mean river residence time was positively correlated with the difference in elevation between the river source and the outlet (Figure 8d) and with the catchment scale (Figure 8e).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The least‐squares curve fitting method was used to fit a sinusoidal curve to the monthly river and precipitation isotopic data using a toolbox for nonlinear regression in R version 4.0.3 (Baty et al, 2015). The river water transit time (WT) was estimated using the damping of the isotopic curve amplitude according to the following equation (Niinikoski, Hendriksson, & Karhu, 2016):

WT = π {(1 - C)}^{1 / 2} / 2C,

where C is the amplitude damping given as C = Ar/Ap, Ar is the amplitude of δ 18 O or δ 2 H values in river water, and Ap is the amplitude of δ 18 O or δ 2 H in precipitation. WT is given in months.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The least-squares curve fitting method was used to fit a sinusoidal curve to the monthly river and precipitation isotopic data using a toolbox for nonlinear regression in R version 4.0.3 (Baty et al, 2015). The river water transit time (WT) was estimated using the damping of the isotopic curve amplitude according to the following equation (Niinikoski, Hendriksson, & Karhu, 2016):…”

Section: Mean Water Transit Time Estimationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Isotopic temporal and spatial variations of tropical rivers in Thailand reflect monsoon precipitation signals

Laonamsai

Ichiyanagi

Patsinghasanee³

2021

Hydrological Processes

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Stable isotopic compositions (δ 18 O and d-excess) from 25 rivers in Thailand were analysed monthly during 2013-2015. Results indicated that monsoon precipitation fundamentally influences the river isotopes. The overland flow supplied from monsoon precipitation and human-altered flow regimes produces considerable isotopic variability. Spatial and temporal variations were observed among four principal geographical regions. The seasonality of monsoon precipitation in mountainous Thailand produced large variations in isotopic compositions because most rainfall occurred during the southwest monsoon, and dry conditions prevailed during the northeast monsoon. The northern and northeastern regions are mountainous, highland areas. Low δ 18 O values were found in these regions, likely because of altitude effects on precipitation. Conversely, monsoonal precipitation continually supplies rivers in southern Thailand all year round, producing higher and more consistent δ 18 O values than in the other regions. The Chao Phraya plain in the central region experienced enrichment of δ 18 O river runoff related to evaporation in irrigation systems. Larger catchment areas and longer residence times resulted in more pronounced evaporation effects, producing lower values of d-excess and local river water line slopes compared with precipitation. The isotopic differences between river waters and precipitation were utilized to determine river recharge elevations and water transit time. The methods presented here can be used to explore hydrological interactions in other tropical river basins.

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“…The authors suggest tracer-aided modeling researchers to publish their water isotope data to improve the evaluation of the reliance of tracer-aided modeling performance on water sampling strategy (similarly to He et al 2021;Niinikoski et al, 2016;Yde et al, 2016).…”

Section: Uncertainties and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the influence of water sampling strategy on the performance of tracer-aided hydrological modeling in a mountainous basin on the Tibetan Plateau

Nan

Wei

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. Tracer-aided hydrological models integrating water isotope module into the simulation of runoff generation are useful tools to reduce uncertainty of hydrological modeling in cold basins that are featured by complex runoff processes and multiple runoff components. However, there is little guidance on the strategy of field water sampling for isotope analysis to run tracer-aided hydrological models, which is especially important for large mountainous basins on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) where field water sampling work is highly costly. This study conducted a set of numerical experiments based on the THREW-T model to evaluate the reliance of the tracer-aided modeling performance on the availability of site measurements of water isotope in the Yarlung Tsangpo River (YTR) basin on the TP. Data conditions considered in the numerical experiments included the availability of glacier meltwater isotope measurement, quantity of site measurements of precipitation isotope, and the variable collecting strategies for stream water sample. Our results suggested that: (1) In high-mountain basins where glacier meltwater samples for isotope analysis are not available, estimating glacier meltwater isotope by an offset parameter from the precipitation isotope is a feasible way to force the tracer-aided hydrological model. Using a set of glacier meltwater δ18O that were 2 ‰~9 ‰ lower than the mean precipitation δ18O resulted in only small changes in the model performance and the quantifications of contributions of runoff components (CRCs, smaller than 5 %) to streamflow in the YTR basin; (2) strategy of field sampling for site precipitation to correct the global gridded isotope product of isoGSM for model forcing should be carefully designed. Collecting precipitation samples at sites falling in the same altitude tends to be worse at representing the ground pattern of precipitation δ18O over the basin than collecting precipitation samples from sites in a range of altitudes; (3) Collecting weekly stream water samples at multiple sites in the wet and warm seasons is the optimal strategy for calibrating and evaluating a tracer-aided hydrological model in the YTR basin. It is highly recommended to increase the number of stream water sampling sites rather than spending resource on extensive sampling of stream water at a sole site for multiple years. These results provide important implications for collecting site measurements of water isotope for running tracer-aided hydrological models to improve quantifications of CRCs in the high-mountain basins.

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Using stable isotopes to resolve transit times and travel routes of river water: a case study from southern Finland

Cited by 15 publications

References 17 publications

Spatial Patterns of Water Age: Using Young Water Fractions to Improve the Characterization of Transit Times in Contrasting Catchments

Spatial Patterns of Water Age: Using Young Water Fractions to Improve the Characterization of Transit Times in Contrasting Catchments

Isotopic temporal and spatial variations of tropical rivers in Thailand reflect monsoon precipitation signals

Assessing the influence of water sampling strategy on the performance of tracer-aided hydrological modeling in a mountainous basin on the Tibetan Plateau

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