TY - JOUR
T1 - Land cover influence on catchment scale subsurface water storage investigated by multiple methods
T2 - Implications for UK Natural Flood Management
AU - Peskett, Leo M.
AU - Heal, Kate V.
AU - MacDonald, Alan M.
AU - Black, Andrew R.
AU - McDonnell, Jeffrey J.
N1 - Funding Information:
The Tweed Forum helped in identifying suitable sites within the wider Eddleston Natural Flood Management project and with access to sampling sites. Kirsty Upton ( BGS ), Robert Fairhurst and Adam Francis helped with routine sample collection, and Sarah Collins (BGS) provided useful comments on aspects of the analysis. The work was supported by L. Peskett’s NERC E3 DTP /BGS BUFI PhD studentship at the University of Edinburgh , UK (grant number NE/L002558/1); a SAGES Postdoctoral & Early Career Researcher Exchange (PECRE) grant supporting collaboration with J. McDonnell; an in-kind contribution from J. McDonnell and K. Janzen (University of Saskatchewan) and Melanie Leng (BGS) for conducting isotopic analyses; and in-kind contributions and loan of equipment from the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, and BGS Edinburgh. For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023
PY - 2023/6
Y1 - 2023/6
N2 - Study region: United Kingdom (UK). Study Focus: ‘Natural flood management’ (NFM) schemes manipulating land use and other catchment features to control runoff are increasingly promoted across the UK. Catchment water storage and mixing processes influence runoff, but our understanding of the effects of land cover change on these processes is still limited. This study combined hydrometric, isotopic and geochemical measurements to investigate land cover versus potential topographic, soil and geological controls. It compared storage-discharge dynamics in nine nested catchments within a 67 km2 managed upland catchment in southern Scotland. Storage and mixing dynamics were characterised from hydrometric data using recession analysis and from isotopic data using mean transit time and young water fraction estimates. To give information on water sources, groundwater fraction was estimated from end member mixing analysis based on acid neutralising capacity. New hydrological insights: The analysis showed low but variable sub-catchment scale dynamic storage (16–200 mm), mean transit times (134–370 days) and groundwater fractions (0.20–0.52 of annual stream runoff). Soil hydraulic conductivity was most significantly positively correlated with storage and mixing measures, whilst percentage forest cover was inversely correlated. Any effects of forest cover on increasing catchment infiltration and storage are masked by soil hydraulic properties even in the most responsive catchments. This highlights the importance of understanding dominant controls on catchment storage when using tree planting as a flood management strategy.
AB - Study region: United Kingdom (UK). Study Focus: ‘Natural flood management’ (NFM) schemes manipulating land use and other catchment features to control runoff are increasingly promoted across the UK. Catchment water storage and mixing processes influence runoff, but our understanding of the effects of land cover change on these processes is still limited. This study combined hydrometric, isotopic and geochemical measurements to investigate land cover versus potential topographic, soil and geological controls. It compared storage-discharge dynamics in nine nested catchments within a 67 km2 managed upland catchment in southern Scotland. Storage and mixing dynamics were characterised from hydrometric data using recession analysis and from isotopic data using mean transit time and young water fraction estimates. To give information on water sources, groundwater fraction was estimated from end member mixing analysis based on acid neutralising capacity. New hydrological insights: The analysis showed low but variable sub-catchment scale dynamic storage (16–200 mm), mean transit times (134–370 days) and groundwater fractions (0.20–0.52 of annual stream runoff). Soil hydraulic conductivity was most significantly positively correlated with storage and mixing measures, whilst percentage forest cover was inversely correlated. Any effects of forest cover on increasing catchment infiltration and storage are masked by soil hydraulic properties even in the most responsive catchments. This highlights the importance of understanding dominant controls on catchment storage when using tree planting as a flood management strategy.
KW - Catchment storage
KW - Flooding
KW - Land use
KW - Natural flood management
KW - Residence time
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85153798023&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ejrh.2023.101398
DO - 10.1016/j.ejrh.2023.101398
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85153798023
SN - 2214-5818
VL - 47
JO - Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies
JF - Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies
M1 - 101398
ER -
