Moving the Watershed Ecosystem Approach Beyond the Black Box with Sensor Technologies and New Conceptual Models

Abstract:

The small watershed ecosystem as a unit of experimental manipulation and analysis has been a hallmark of the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest for 60 years. Water and nutrient budgets of headwater catchments have been instrumental in advancing our understanding of the response of forested ecosystems to disturbances such as air pollution and land management. A limitation in the practice of this approach is that point-scale measurements are compiled to create catchment scale estimates of fluxes and stores, thus losing process information that could be gained from spatial patterns that depend on position along hydrologic or biogeochemical pathways. Beginning in 2007, high frequency measurements of water table fluctuation, made possible by inexpensive sensor technology, highlighted the previously underappreciated role of groundwater in these steep headwater catchments. Hydropedologic units (HPUs), identified by morphological differences in soil profiles, and reflecting distinct groundwater regimes, were defined and arranged along a generalized toposequence to describe a conceptual model which partitions spatial variation into predictable, repeatable landscape units. Stratification of point scale measurements of soil and water quality elucidates spatial patterns of variation and allows identification of hot spots, or zones of the catchment where certain processes prevail. Specific HPUs are associated with high rates of dissolved organic matter production, nitrification, denitrification and delivery of mineral weathering products to the surface. Moving beyond the small watershed, contrasting spatial patterns in surface water chemistry at the basin scale suggest differing prevalence of various HPUs among headwater catchments. Comparison of water quality patterns with HPU distribution allows identification of catchment properties responsible for regulation of water quality at the point to the catchment to the basin scales.