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Breaking the Window of Detection: Using Multi-Scale Solute Tracer Studies to Assess Mass Recovery at the Detection Limit

Journal Article · · Water Resources Research
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1029/2022wr032736· OSTI ID:2421200
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7]
  1. Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States); Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR (United States); OSTI
  2. USDA Forest Service, Corvallis, OR (United States)
  3. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  4. Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States)
  5. Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States); Oregon State Univ., Cascades Bend, OR (United States)
  6. Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States)
  7. Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Stream solute tracers are commonly injected to assess transport and transformation in study reaches, but results are biased toward the shortest and fastest storage locations. While this bias has been understood for decades, the impact of an experimental constraint on our understanding has yet to be considered. Here, we ask how different our understanding of reach- and segment-scale transport would be if our empirical limits were extended. We demonstrate a novel approach to manipulate experimental conditions and observe mass that is stored at timescales beyond the traditional reach-scale window of detection. We are able to explain the fate of an average of 26% of solute tracer mass that would have been considered as “lost” in a traditional study design across our 14 replicates, extending our detection limits to characterize flowpaths that would have been previously unmeasured. We demonstrate how this formerly lost mass leads to predicting lower magnitudes of gross gains and losses in individual reaches, and ultimately show that the network turnover we infer from solute tracers represents an upper limit on actual, expected behavior. Finally, we review the evolution of tracer studies and their interpretation including this approach and provide a proposed future direction to extend empirical studies to not-before-seen timescales.
Research Organization:
Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States); USDA Forest Service, Savannah River, New Ellenton, SC (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
89243019SSC000022; SC0019377
OSTI ID:
2421200
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1959263
Journal Information:
Water Resources Research, Journal Name: Water Resources Research Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 59; ISSN 0043-1397
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
hyporheic exchange
river corridor
solute tracer
stream
transit time
turnover