HR: 08:50h
AN: H41I-04    [Abstracts]
TI: Scaling relationship for surface water transport in stream networks and sub-surface flow interaction
AU: * Worman, A
EM: anders.worman@bt.slu.se
AF: Anders, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, S-75007 Sweden
AB: Ground surface topography is known to control the circulation pattern of groundwater and also reflects the surface hydrological pathways through the landscape. This means that similar geometrical distributions typical to the landscape can be related physically-mathematically to the overall circulation of water and solute elements on land. Such understanding is needed in the management of water resources, especially on the watershed scale or larger. This paper outlines a theory by which we represent landscape topography in terms of its Fourier spectrum of a typical wave-function, formally relate this spectrum to the sub-surface flow of water and solute elements. Further, the stream network characteristics is analysed both in terms of the fractal distribution of individual stream lengths and the distribution of total transport distances in the watershed. Empirical relationships between the three types of distributions are established for two example watersheds in the middle and southern Sweden. Because the flow of water and solute elements in the stream network can also be described by convoluting unit solutions over the stream network, this paper describes an approach that relate lanscape topography to hydrological and geochemical circulation. The study shows that surface topography, stream network characteristics and thickness of quaternary deposits controls the circulation pattern of the deep groundwater. The water exchange is controlled by topography on both the continental scale as well as regional scale. The residence of deep groundwater in the stream network - before entering the coastal zone - is, therefore also controlled by the landscape topography.
DE: 1804 Catchment
DE: 1805 Computational hydrology
DE: 1835 Hydrogeophysics
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005