HR: 0830h
AN: H21D-0869    [PDF]
TI: The Hydroclimatic Response of the Whitewater River Basin: Influence of Groundwater Time Scales
AU: Beeson, P C
EM: pcb128@psu.edu
AF: EES-2, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS J495 Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Beeson, P C
EM: pcb128@psu.edu
AF: Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 212 Sackett Bldg. Penn State Univ., University Park, PA 16802 United States
AU: * Springer, E P
EM: everetts@lanl.gov
AF: EES-2, Los Alamos National Laboratory, MS J495 Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AU: Duffy, C J
EM: cxd11@psu.edu
AF: Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 212 Sackett Bldg. Penn State Univ., University Park, PA 16802 United States
AB: A near-surface groundwater model was developed to assess the impact of land use and climate variability on the overall water budget of the Whitewater River Basin. The watershed is located in southeastern Kansas within the ARM-SGP as part of the DOE Water Cycle Pilot Study. The Whitewater River Basin has an area of 1,100 square-kilometers, an elevation range of 380 - 470m (amsl), and an average annual precipitation of 858 millimeters. The approach presented here attempts to examine the importance of groundwater in the water budget and hydroclimatic response at the river basin scale. In order to identify the time scales of groundwater in this system, time series and geospatial analyses were used to identify significant spatial structure and dominant temporal modes in the climate, runoff and groundwater response. In this research, we show that the time scales of groundwater baseflow to the river network are proportional to drainage density and position in the hydrologic landscape. The concept of a hydrologic landscape (Winter, JAWRA, April 2001) defines three zones: recharge (upland), translation (intervening steep slopes), and discharge (lowland), and the hydrologic landscape is useful for standardizing the evaluation of physical properties within any watershed. Singular spectrum analysis was used for a 50-year simulation to determine dominant modes and time scales for the hydrologic landscape units in the Whitewater River Basin. We found that the time scale of groundwater baseflow response increases with increasing drainage density. The sensitivity of this response is important to understand and close the water budget for a river basin through observation network design. The effects of climate forcing, both precipitation and evapotranspiration, can be seen through the hydrologic landscapes and channel networks by changes in the baseflow response time. Los Alamos National Laboratory, an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer, is operated by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy under contract W-7405-ENG-36.
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1833 Hydroclimatology
DE: 1836 Hydrologic budget (1655)
DE: 1848 Networks
DE: 1860 Runoff and streamflow
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting