Testing wetland axioms at a watershed scale: Case studies of the aggregate hydrologic effects of non-adjacent wetlands

Abstract:

Wetlands not adjacent to streams (i.e. “non-adjacent wetlands”) are hypothesized to affect downgradient hydrology in a number of ways. Non-adjacent wetlands may, for example, attenuate peak flows, serve as focal points for groundwater recharge, and decrease streamflow variability. The lack of spatially and temporally continuous data elucidating these relationships makes hydrological models an important medium for testing these hypotheses at broad spatial scales (e.g., mesoscale watersheds). We present results from two case studies that apply a hydrological model modified to represent non-adjacent wetland hydrological processes and thereby evaluate their watershed-scale aggregate hydrological effects. We focus on non-adjacent wetlands in two North American landscapes: (1) a ~202 km² watershed in the Coastal Plain with an extensive distribution of Carolina Bay wetlands and (2) a ~1672 km² watershed in the Great Plains, which is characterized by a dense distribution of landscape depressions (i.e., prairie potholes). Preliminary results suggest that non-adjacent wetlands significantly affect downgradient hydrology in both landscapes – specifically the baseflow and quickflow components of the hydrograph. However, the emergent watershed-scale hydrological effects of non-adjacent wetlands in the two diverse landscapes differ widely, primarily in response to the varying importance of wetland (e.g., discharge, recharge, flow-through) and wetland to stream transport (e.g., surface, shallow subsurface, deep groundwater flows) functions in these systems. We highlight the watershed-scale hydrological effects of non-adjacent wetlands in these two physiographic settings and describe the need for additional analyses of wetlands in disparate landscapes, using alternative conceptual and simulation models.