HR: 13:55h
AN: H33G-02 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Mountain Front Recharge and the Role of Hillslope Processes above the Mountain Front
AU: * Wilson, J L
EM: jwilson@nmt.edu
AF: New Mexico Inst. of Mining & Technology, Dept. of Earth & Environ. Science, Socorro, NM 87801 United States
AB: Recharge at the mountain front is an important component of a basin groundwater balance in arid and semi-arid areas. Mountain-front recharge (MFR) is traditionally estimated using basin-centered approaches, such as basin groundwater modeling or isotopic analyses of basin groundwater. These methods do not consider hydrologic processes above the mountain front. Mountain-centered approaches to estimate MFR also exist, but they have been mostly empirical. The future lies in integrated mountain-centered approaches, aimed at observing, understanding, and modeling processes in the mountain-block hydrologic system, and yielding high-resolution models and visualizations of water (and chemical) movement over and through mountain blocks. Important processes can be divided into three groups. These are process that control how much water enters the mountain block at the surface and near surface, how water moves through the block, and finally how it leaves the block and enters the adjacent basin. This presentation focuses on the first of these groups. After all, if no water enters the block there is only runoff to carry water to the basin. Like many hillslope scale studies it concerns the role of precipitation, evapotranspiration and vegetation, and vadose zone processes in the thin mantel of soil overlying the bedrock. Unlike those studies the focus is on partitioning of water to the bedrock, and the controls on that partitioning.
DE: 1813 Eco-hydrology
DE: 1818 Evapotranspiration
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1838 Infiltration
DE: 1879 Watershed
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005