The "Teflon basin" myth: Snow-soil interactions in mountain catchments in the western US

Abstract:

In much of western North America, snow and snowmelt provide the primary means for storage of winter precipitation, effectively transferring water from the relatively wet winter season to the typically dry summers. A common assumption is that high-elevation catchments in the western United States behave like "Teflon basins" and that water released from seasonal storage in snow packs flows directly into streams with little or no interaction with underlying soils. Here I present information from a variety of catchments in the Colorado Front Range on snowmelt/soil interactions using isotopic, geochemical, nutrient and hydrometric data in 2- and 3- component hydrograph separations, along with end-member mixing analysis (EMMA). For most catchments we measured these parameters in weekly precipitation, the seasonal snowpack, snowmelt before contact with the ground, discharge, springs, soil solution, and groundwater.

We ran EMMA at the catchment scale for catchments that represent the rain-snow transition zone in the montane forest, the seasonally snow covered sub-alpine to alpine transition zone, and a high-elevation alpine zone near the continental divide. In all catchments three end-members were the source waters for about 95% of discharge. Two end-members were the same in all catchments, snow and groundwater. For the alpine catchment talus springs was the third water source, while rain was the third water source in the two lower-elevation catchments. For all three catchments, soil solution plotted with stream waters along or near a line connecting the snow and groundwater end-members. Thus, for seasonally snow-covered catchments from montane to alpine ecosystems, snowmelt infiltrates underlying soils before snowmelt recharges groundwater reservoirs and contributes to surface flows. Seasonally snow-covered catchments are not Teflon basins. Rather, snowmelt infiltrates soils where solute concentrations are changed by biological and geochemical processes.