Tracing Longitudinal Patterns of Subsurface Hillslope-Stream Connections Across Catchments

Subsurface stormflow (SSF) generated on hillslopes is an important hydrological process in headwater catchments. Tracing SSF flow paths and ultimately quantifying its contribution to streamflow is challenging as the signal can undergo various transformations from the hillslope. The riparian zone specifically, can act as a mixing and storage zone and may change strongly the physical and chemical signals of hillslope SSF before it reaches the stream. As a consequence, SSF may not be recognized as streamflow contribution. Thus, the relevance of this process for streamflow generation is currently not fully understood. In addition, studies often focus on quantifying SSF generation at the hillslope scale. Therefore, there is a lack of data to fully understand SSF characteristics at the catchment scale.

The aim of this study is to characterize the hillslope-stream connectivity at the reach to catchment scale, using physical as well as chemical information. To deal with the challenges associated with measuring the SSF signal, this study implements a novel multi-method experimental design that will create a unique along-stream data set of hillslope contributions to streamflow in four test catchments in Germany and Austria. A combination of extensive salt dilution gauging along streams, water level measurements in-stream and in near-stream groundwater, longitudinal Radon profiles in streamwater and regular sampling of near-stream groundwater and streamwater for hydrochemical analyses will allow to evaluate the spatial variability of SSF inputs to the stream and to quantify the along-stream attenuation of the SSF signal.

Here, we present the study outline as well as first data of water chemistry in near-stream groundwater and streamwater and will characterize the longitudinal patterns of a range of hydrochemical tracers along the streams in the four test catchments. The data set we will collect will be used to simplify and minimize future experimental effort and to identify simple proxies for regionalization. Ultimately, we aim to develop a framework to determine the likelihood of hillslope-stream connectivity at the catchment scale, as influenced by landscape and climate characteristics.