Patterns of δ18O and δ2H in Earth’s precipitation provide essential scientific data for use in hydrological, climatological, ecological and forensic research. Insufficient global spatial data coverage promulgated the use of gridded datasets employing geostatistical techniques (isoscapes) for spatiotemporally coherent isotope predictions. Cluster-based isoscape regionalization combines the advantages of local or regional prediction calibrations into a global framework. Here we present a revision of a Regionalized Cluster-Based Water Isotope Prediction model (RCWIP2) incorporating new isotope data having extensive spatial coverage and a wider array of predictor variables combined with high-resolution gridded climatic data. We introduced coupling of δ18O and δ2H (e.g. d-excess constrained) in the model predictions to prevent runaway isoscapes when each isotope is modelled separately. We validated RCWIP2 isoscape performance by cross-checking observed versus modelled d-excess values. We improved model error quantification by adopting full uncertainty propagation in all calculations. RCWIP2 improved the RMSE over previous isoscape models by ca. 0.6 ‰ for δ18O and 5 ‰ for δ2H with an uncertainty <1.0 ‰ for δ18O and <8 ‰ for δ2H for most regions of the world. The improved RCWIP2 isoscape grids and maps (season, monthly, annual, regional) are available for download at https://isotopehydrologynetwork.iaea.org.

Soil water stable isotopes are widely used across disciplines (e.g. hydrology, ecology, soil science, and biogeochemistry). However, the full potential of stables isotopes as a tool for characterizing the origin, flow path, transport processes and residence times of water in different eco-, hydro-, and geological compartments has not yet been exploited. This is mainly due to the large variety of different methods for pore water extraction. While recent work has shown that matric potential affects the equilibrium fractionation, little work has examined how different water retention characteristics might affect the sampled water isotopic composition. Here, we present a simple laboratory experiment with two well-studied standard soils differing in their physico-chemical properties (e.g., clayey loam and silty sand). Samples were sieved, oven-dried and spiked with water of known isotopic composition to full saturation. For investigating the effect of water retention characteristics on the extracted water isotopic composition, we used pressure extractors to sample isotopically labelled soil water along the pF curve. After pressure extraction, we further extracted the soil samples via cryogenic vacuum extraction. The null hypothesis guiding our work was that water held at different tensions shows the same isotopic composition. Our results showed that the sampled soil water differed isotopically from the introduced isotopic label over time and sequentially along the pF curve. Our and previous studies suggest caution in interpreting isotope results of extracted soil water and a need to better characterize processes that govern isotope fractionation with respect to soil water retention characteristics. In the future, knowledge about soil water retention characteristics could be applied to predict soil water fractionation effects under natural and non-stationary conditions.

Mountain regions are an important regulator in the global water cycle through their disproportionate water contribution. Often referred to as the “Water Towers of the World”, mountains contribute 40 to 60% of the world’s annual surface flow. Shade is a common feature in mountains, where complex terrain cycles land surfaces in and out of shadows over daily and seasonal scales. This study investigated turbulent water and carbon dioxide fluxes over the snow-free period in a subalpine wetland in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, from June 7th to September 10th, 2018. Shading had a significant and substantial effect on water and carbon fluxes at our site. Each hourly increase of shade per day reduced evapotranspiration (ET) and gross primary production (GPP) by 0.42 mm and 0.77 gCm-2, equivalent to 17% and 15% per day, respectively, over the entire study period. However, during only peak growing season, when leaves were fully out and mature, shade caused by the local complex terrain, reduced ET and increased GPP, likely due to enhanced diffuse radiation. The overall result was increased water use efficiency at the site during periods of increased shading during the peak growing season. In addition to incoming solar radiation (Rg), temporal variability in ET was found to relate to temporal variability in soil temperature, moisture and vapour pressure deficit. Shade impacted the curvature and intercept of the nonlinear ET-Rg relationship at our site. In contrast, temporal variability in GPP at our site was dependent largely on Rg only. Our findings suggest that shaded subalpine wetlands can store large volumes of water for late season runoff and are productive through short growing seasons.

A. R. MacKenzie1,2,*, S. Krause1,2, K. M. Hart1, R. M. Thomas1,3, P. J. Blaen1,4, R.L. Hamilton1,2, G. Curioni1,2, S. E. Quick1,2, A. Kourmouli1,2, D. M. Hannah1,2, S. A. Comer-Warner1,2, N. Brekenfeld1,2, S. Ullah1,2 and M. C. Press1,51. Birmingham Institute of Forest Research, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK2. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Science, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK3. Now at Big Sky Science Ltd, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B72 1SY, UK4. Now at Yorkshire Water, Chadwick Street, Leeds, LS10 1LJ, UK5. Now at Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M15 6BH, UK* Corresponding author:[email protected] moisture; stream metabolism; climate change; long-term monitoringSummary Paragraph The ecosystem services provided by forests modulate runoff generation processes, nutrient cycling and water and energy exchange between soils, vegetation and atmosphere. Increasing atmospheric CO2affects many linked aspects of forest and catchment function in ways we do not adequately understand. Most significantly, global levels of atmospheric CO2 will be around 40% higher in 2050 than current levels, yet estimates of how water and solute fluxes in forested catchments will respond to increased CO2 are highly uncertain. The Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) facility of the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) is an intensively monitored forest site specialising in fundamental studies of the response of whole ecosystem patches of mature, deciduous, temperate woodland to elevated CO2. Here, we introduce the facility, situated in a mixed land-use headwater catchment, with a particular focus on its environmental setting and the experimental infrastructure. The facility offers a significant opportunity to advance multi- and interdisciplinary understanding at the interfaces of soil, vegetation, hydrosphere and atmosphere under changed atmospheric composition.Site Description and MethodsThis summary complements online introductory videos (https://tinyurl.com/y3a2hkkx) and draws on the facility ‘White Book’, which is a live web-document containing extensive details of all the projects undertaken at the facility and details of instrument placement (heights, depths, spatial separation).The Wood Brook catchment and FACE facilityThe BIFoR FACE facility is situated in a mainly agricultural headwater catchment in the UK drained by the Wood Brook, and consists of the main elevated CO2 (eCO2) facility and a number of spatially nested satellite study sites including various forest plantations of different age and management (Figure 1). The facility is in lowland, rural, central England (52o48’ 3.6” N, 2o 18’ 0” W, 106 m above mean sea level (amsl)), within a patchy landscape typical of most temperate forest settings (Haddad et al., 2015). Wood Brook is a second-order stream with a 3.1 km² catchment ranging in elevation from 90 to 150 m amsl (Blaen et al., 2017) and subsequently draining into the River Severn catchment (the most voluminous river in England and Wales). The entire catchment is experiencing drastic land-use changes, having been converted to organic farming since 2019 and herbal lays in replacement of what was previously grass monoculture or arable, in addition to the new forest plantations.[Figure 1 here]The BIFoR FACE forest at the bottom of the Wood Brook catchment is a mature deciduous woodland, with dominant (25-m tall) English oak (Quercus robur ) planted around 1850. Sub-dominant (ca. 10 m tall) species consist of common hazel (Corylus avellana ), common hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna ), sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus ) and other native species (Hart et al., 2019). Each stem with diameter-at-breast-height greater than 10 cm has been geolocated and tagged. Centimetre-scale forest structure was measured by a lidar overflight in August 2014 and by terrestrial laser scanning (private communication, Eric Casella, Forest Research, Surrey, UK); this structure establishes the basis for penetration of air, light, and water into the forest canopy.The central, eCO2 component of BIFoR FACE consists of nine experimental patches of 15 m radius (Hart et al., 2019). Three ‘undisturbed’ (or ‘ghost’) patches have no CO2-dosing infrastructure; three ‘control’ patches are exposed to ambient CO2 concentrations delivered via the same infrastructure used in the three ‘treatment’ patches to maintain +150 ppmv above ambient CO2 at all levels of the canopy. Elevated CO2 is maintained during daylight hours from oak bud burst (ca. 1st April) to last leaf fall (ca. 31st October). The CO2-dosing system works well; one-minute running means are within 15% of target in the treatment plots, with less than 1% of the time showing deviation above 10% of the baseline value in the control plots (Hart et al., 2019). The first season with eCO2 was 2017 and the treatment will continue until at least 2026. A parallel study of the effect of nitrogen and phosphorus addition began in 2020 in the forest away from the FACE patches.Surrounding the BIFoR FACE, the Wood Brook catchment hosts several long-term forest hydrological observatories. In partnership with the estate owners, young mixed-deciduous plantations are subjected to different manipulation treatment including irrigation and fertilisation experiments.The environmental contextThe climate at the Wood Brook catchment is that of the temperate maritime zone of north-west Europe (Barry and Chorley, 2010). The site-mean annual temperature (MAT) measured between 2016 and 2019 was 10.6 ± 0.8 oC and its mean annual precipitation (MAP) was 676 ± 66 mm. This situates BIFoR FACE well inside the MAT-MAP climate space for temperate forests (Sommerfeld et al., 2018). The catchment is within the area covered by the Central England Temperature record, which provides a time series back to 1772 (Parker et al., 1992).The Wood Brook catchment is situated in a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (European Union Directive 91/676/EEC) with mean nitrate concentrations in the Wood Brook ranging from 5 to 7 mg N l-1 (Blaen et al., 2017). The contemporary reactive nitrogen deposition from the atmosphere in the catchment is ~22 kg N ha-1 y-1 with an ammonium to nitrate deposition ratio of 7:3 (private communication, S. Tomlinson, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology). Deposition of this scale represents less than about 15% of the total nitrogen nutrition of temperate deciduous forest trees (Rennenberg and Dannenmann, 2015).Site infrastructureThe Wood Brook is equipped with two continuous water quality monitoring stations comprising in-stream sensors measuring stage, water temperature, and electrical conductivity continuously (up to every 10 seconds). Sensors to measure further parameters (UV-VIS absorbance, DO, pH, and turbidity) are housed in an insulated kiosk located on the streambank (Blaen et al., 2017a). An ISCO peristaltic pump (Lincoln, NE, USA) passes 1 L of stream water through these sensors every hour. Continuous stream monitoring is supplemented with campaign-based sampling facilitated by networks of surface water ISCO autosamplers, for instance during tracer tests (Blaen et al., 2017a,b), as well as spatially nested multi-level mini-piezometers installed in the streambed to investigate streambed biogeochemical processes and groundwater-surface water interactions (Comer-Warner et al., 2019, Comer-Warner et al., 2020).Soil moisture in the main BIFoR FACE facility is monitored by 12 cm long frequency domain sensors (CS655 by Campbell Scientific, claimed accuracy ± 3 % v/v for ‘typical’ soils) installed diagonally from the surface in groups of three spaced 1 m apart, with two groups in the ’control’ and ’treatment’ patches and one group in the ’ghost’ patches, and monitoring at 15 to 30 min resolution.In addition, one of the juvenile plantations close to the catchment outlet has been instrumented since 2016 with active fibre-optic distributed temperature sensing (FO-DTS) for measuring soil temperature and soil moisture at a submeter spatial resolution, resulting in 1850 soil temperature and soil moisture sampling locations across the site, ranging from 10-40 cm depths (Ciocca et al., 2020). The retrieval from the FO-DTS has a maximum at 38%v/v, a value empirically determined from a soil-specific field calibration against point soil moisture sensors installed adjacent to the fibre-optic cable. The variability shown for the FO-DTS is that for 4 quasi-independent measurements per day at 25 cm intervals along the fibre-optic cable. Uncertainties of ca. 3-5% v/v have been reported for soil moisture measurements with the DTS technique (Gamage et al. 2018).Each treatment (eCO2) and control experimental patch is ringed by 16 free‐standing, climbable, lattice towers that reach 2-3 m above the local oak canopy; a 17th tower is sited in the centre of each patch. The lattice towers are secured by screw piles; the experimental site contains no concrete foundations or guy wires. Access to the experimental patches is via low-level walkways raised approximately 30 cm above ground level to prevent compaction. Canopy access above 5 m is contracted to climbing arborists or achieved using a bespoke canopy access system (CAS) installed from the 17th central tower of each infrastructure array. The CAS is operated by trained staff so that rope access training is not required for researchers. Welfare and simple laboratory facilities are provided. Elevated CO2 dosing, canopy access, and routine monitoring is operated by a team of six technical staff permanently stationed at BIFoR FACE.Four meteorological masts are located at the periphery of the woodland and a 40 m ‘flux tower’ stands towards the downwind end of the wooded area so that its flux ‘footprint’ is within the forest for the prevailing south-westerly winds. During dosing, true biogeochemical CO2 fluxes are, of course, obscured by the gas released to provide the eCO2 treatment effect but sensible and latent heat fluxes are recorded.Figure 2 illustrates the flow of data and tissue samples into their permanent repositories. Other equipment (not shown) is deployed ad hoc within specific projects.[Figure 2 here.]To complement the experimental infrastructure in the Wood Brook catchment and BIFoR FACE facility, an integrated groundwater-surface water model has been developed and validated by a combination of flow signatures and applied to investigate stream and subsurface water and energy balance in response to forest shading (Qiu et al., 2019).Example ResultsSoil moisture dynamics, stream discharge, and water quality in mature forest and young plantationExample core data (precipitation and FACE soil water content, discharge and DO) and project-specific data (field-scale soil moisture measured by FO-DTS at 10 cm) demonstrate the value of long-term integrated monitoring in ecohydrological observatories such as the Wood Brook catchment (Figure 3).The variability of the temperate maritime climate is evident: prolonged wetting and drying events with occasional, shorter, high-intensity rainfall events. Signals can take a long time to emerge within such variability, which is a key argument for a long-term experimental platform such as BIFoR FACE. The time series at this relatively early stage suggests that: (i) the plantation is systematically wetter than the neighbouring FACE forest even though the plantation slopes downwards towards FACE; (ii) there is significant spatial variability in the plantation and FACE forest; and (iii) the eCO2 patches are drier than the aCO2 and undisturbed patches. Point (iii) is a result of spatial variability in the forest; the strength of soil moistening due to eCO2, if any is present (cf. Ellsworth, 1999; Drake et al., 2016), remains to be quantified.Corresponding water levels at the Wood Brook catchment outlet highlight the general “flashiness” of the flow regime with relatively fast responses to precipitation events for a permeable catchment as well as fast recession of flow (Figure 3 bottom). This example time series of one of our monitoring stations also indicates some of the challenges in maintaining consistent quality control throughout long-term observation networks. In addition to data losses induced by power supply failures in Spring 2019, observed values up to early 2019 were an order of magnitude lower than from summer 2019 onwards due to repeated sedimentation of the water level sensor and recurring changes to the channel cross sectional profile that finally led to a relocation of the sensor as indicated in Figure 3. The additional value of continuously monitored water level and water quality data (as highlighted by the example of dissolved oxygen in Fig 3 bottom) extends beyond the ability to observe long-term trends in catchment behaviour in response to land-use changes but also provides opportunity to enhance mechanistic process understanding of in stream metabolism and biogeochemical processing as well as event-based activation of pollution sources (Blaen et al., 2017a).[Figure 3 here.]Data protocol and availabilityAll projects form part of the overall collaborative effort to understand catchment behaviour and forest form and function, and all facility users sign a data protocol to that effect. The BIFoR FACE science community believe and advocate transparency in science, assured through open data after an agreed period of privileged use.The facility is supported by a full-time data manager (author GC), responsible for tracking all data and tissue samples. The data is available upon request; an open data repository for a subset of core data is under construction.The continuous streams of data are handled by a suite of dataloggers and a local LAN network which allows data to be saved on the BIFoR FACE facility server (Figure 2). A back-up server located on site in a separate building stores a daily image of the primary server. Data is transferred daily to the University of Birmingham servers and the raw and processed data (i.e. organised in a consistent format and cleared of evident issues) are stored separately to improve resilience. Non-continuous data collected by researchers is stored in the University of Birmingham servers and handled directly between researchers and the data manager.All tissue is recorded when sampled and a chain-of-custody initiated using Pro-curo. Quenching of biological samples to -70oC is accomplished on-site using a dry shipper (BioTrex-10, Statebourne Cryogenics, Tyne & Wear, UK), avoiding the need for transporting liquid nitrogen. Short-term tissue storage at 5oC and -20 oC can be accommodated on-site, but the permanent tissue bank resides at the University of Birmingham Edgbaston campus.In summary, BIFoR FACE is an ambitious field facility designed primarily to measure the whole-system response of mature temperate forest to elevated CO2, but suitable for a wide range of complementary catchment studies. The facility is highly collaborative in nature and welcomes partners11https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/bifor/get-involved/index.aspx who wish to contribute as part of a multidisciplinary Community of Practice.AcknowledgmentsWe very gratefully acknowledge support from the JABBS Trust, Norbury Park Estate, The John Horseman Trust, Ecological Continuity Trust, NERC (grants NE/S015833/1, NE/P003486/1, NE/N020502/1; NE/T000449/1; NE/T012323/1), and the University of Birmingham. The soil moisture FO-DTS system installation was led by Francesco Ciocca while holding joint positions at the University of Birmingham and at Silixa Ltd. (London, UK).The BIFoR FACE facility cannot run without the dedicated support of its operations team (currently; Nicholas Harper, Peter Miles, Thomas Downes, Gael Denny and Robert Grzesik, formerly; Gary McClean and Anna Gardner). Foundational contributions to the design and implementation of the facility were made by Michael Tausz and Sabine Tausz-Posch. The FACE facility eCO2 treatment uses the system designed by John Nagy and installed by Keith Lewin, both of Brookhaven National Lab, USA. We acknowledge the considerable scientific input of visiting fellows (David Ellsworth, Kristine Crous, Debbie Hemming, Rich Norby, Theresa Blume and Mantha Phanikumar) and former researchers (Will Allwood, Alex Poynter, Elizabeth Hamilton). We gratefully acknowledge strategic guidance from BIFoR Directors (Rob Jackson, Jerry Pritchard, and Nicola Spence) and the Science Committee (Christine Foyer, Vincent Gauci, Francis Pope, and Estrella Luna Diez).ReferencesBarry, R. G., and Chorley, R. J. (2010) Atmosphere, Weather and Climate, 9th ed., Routledge, London.Blaen, P., K. Khamis, C. Lloyd, S. Comer-Warner, F. Ciocca, R. M. Thomas, A. R. MacKenzie, Stefan Krause (2017a), High-frequency monitoring of catchment nutrient exports reveals highly variable storm-event responses and dynamic source zone activation, J. Geophys. Res-Biogeosciences, 10.1002/2017JG003904Blaen P., Brekenfeld N., Comer-Warner S., Krause S. (2017b). Multitracer Field Fluorometry: Accounting for Temperature and Turbidity Variability during Stream Tracer Tests. Water Resources Research, 53,https://doi.org/10.1002/2017WR020815.Ciocca F., Abesser C., Findlay J., Chalari A., Mondanos M., Hannah D.M., Blaen P., Krause S. 2020. A Distributed Heat Pulse Sensor Network for Thermo-Hydraulic Monitoring of the Soil Subsurface. Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology. 53. 352-365,https://doi.org/10.1144/qjegh2018-147Comer-Warner S., Ullah S., Kettridge N., Gooddy D., Krause S. (2019). Seasonal variability of sediment controls on carbon cycling in an agricultural stream. Science of the Total Environment. 688, 732-741,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.06.317Comer-Warner, S.A., Gooddy, D.C., Ullah, S., Glover L., Kettridge N., Wrexler S.K., Kaiser J., Krause S. 2020. Seasonal variability of sediment controls of nitrogen cycling in an agricultural stream. Biogeochemistry. 148, 31–48 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-020-00644-zDrake, J.E., Macdonald, C.A., Tjoelker, M.G., Crous, K.Y., Gimeno, T.E., Singh, B.K., Reich, P.B., Anderson, I.C. and Ellsworth, D.S. (2016), Short‐term carbon cycling responses of a mature eucalypt woodland to gradual stepwise enrichment of atmospheric CO2concentration. Glob Change Biol, 22: 380-390. doi:10.1111/gcb.13109Ellsworth, D.S. (1999), CO2 enrichment in a maturing pine forest: are CO2 exchange and water status in the canopy affected?. Plant, Cell & Environment, 22: 461-472. doi:10.1046/j.1365-3040.1999.00433.xGalloway, J.N., Dentener, F.J., Capone, D.G. et al. (2004) Nitrogen Cycles: Past, Present, and Future. Biogeochemistry 70, 153–226. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-004-0370-0Gamage, D.N.V., Biswas, A., Strachan, I.B., Adamchuk, V.I. 2018. Soil Water Measurement Using Actively Heated Fiber Optics at Field Scale. Sensors 18 (4): 1116 DOI: 10.3390/s18041116Haddad, N.M., Brudvig, L.A., Clobert, J., Davies, K.F., Gonzalez, A., Holt, R.D., Lovejoy, T.E., Sexton, J.O., Austin, M.P., Collins, C.D., Cook, W.M., Damschen, E.I., Ewers, R.M., Foster, B.L., Jenkins, C.N., King, A.J., Laurance, W.F., Levey, D.J., Margules, C.R., Melbourne, B.A., Nicholls, A.O., Orrock, J.L., Song, D.X., Townshend, J.R., 2015. Habitat fragmentation and its lasting impact on Earth’s ecosystems. Sci. Adv. 1.https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1500052Hart, Kris; Curioni, Giulio; Blaen, Philip; Thomas, Rick; Harper, Nicholas; Miles, Peter; Lewin, Keith; Nagy, John; Bannister, Edward; Cai, Xiaoming ; Krause, Stefan; Tausz, Michael; MacKenzie, A. Robert (2019) Characteristics of Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment of a Northern Temperate Mature Forest. Glob Change Biol. doi:10.1111/gcb.14786Norby, R. J., M. G. De Kauwe, T. F. Domingues, R. A. Duursma, D. S. Ellsworth, D. S. Goll, D. M. Lapola, K. A. Luus, A. R. MacKenzie, B. E. Medlyn, R. Pavlick, A Rammig, B Smith, R Thomas, K Thonicke, A. P. Walker, Xiaojuan Yang, and Sönke Zaehle, Model-data synthesis for the next generation of forest FACE experiments, New Phytologist, 2015, DOI: 10.1111/nph.13593.Parker, D.E., T.P. Legg, and C.K. Folland. 1992. A new daily Central England Temperature Series, 1772-1991. Int. J. Clim., Vol 12, pp. 317-342.Payne, Richard John, Dise, Nancy B., Field, Christopher D et al. (3 more authors) (2017) Nitrogen deposition and plant biodiversity : past, present and future. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1528Qiu, H., Blaen, P., Comer‐Warner, S., Hannah, D. M., Krause, S., & Phanikumar, M. S. 2019. Evaluating a coupled phenology – surface energy balance model to understand stream – subsurface temperature dynamics in a mixed‐use farmland catchment. Water Resources Research, 55.https://doi.org/10.1029/2018WR023644Rennenberg, H., Dannenmann, M. (2015) Nitrogen nutrition of trees and temperate forests – the significance of nitrogen availability in pedosphere and atmosphere. Forests 6, 2820-2835.Sommerfeld, A., Senf, C., Buma, B. et al. (2018) Patterns and drivers of recent disturbances across the temperate forest biome. Nat Commun 9, 4355. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06788-9Figure CaptionsFigure 1. (a) BIFoR FACE is located in Mill Haft (white dashed line; lighter patches show locations of the FACE arrays and control patches) in a patchwork of old-growth forest, new forest plantation on arable land, and arable fields. (b) Wood Brook catchment (white dashed line) with the stream running along the northern edge of Mill Haft. (c) Central England location of Mill Haft.Figure 2. A schematic view of the sensor deployment and tissue and data flow through BIFoR FACE and Wood Brook. The main experimental infrastructure elements are shown (left); replicates are indicated by “n = “. Data from electronic sensors are recorded in networked field dataloggers and relayed to the facility server. Back-up is carried out on-site and by daily data download to the main University of Birmingham servers with Retrospect software (Retrospect Inc. USA). Initial quality assurance is under the control of the BIFoR Data Manager (author GC) before data is released to the BIFoR FACE community. A parallel system operates for physical samples, the metadata from which enters the BIFoR FACE database via chain-of-custody software (Pro-curo Software Ltd, West Sussex, UK).Figure 3. a) time series of daily top-of-forest precipitation and soil moisture from distributed temperature sensing (DTS) by fibre-optic cable embedded at 10 cm depth between rows on new broadleaf forest plantation immediately south of the FACE forest (see Figure 1). b) Time series of shallow soil water content from an array of sensors in the FACE forest. The numbers of sensors at each part of the time series are reported in the top of the panel. c) Water level (in blue) and dissolved oxygen (in green) measured on the Wood Brook stream (see Figure 1).

Subalpine forests are hydrologically important to the function and health of mountain basins. Identifying the specific water sources and the proportions used by subalpine forests is necessary to understand potential impacts to these forests under a changing climate. The recent ‘Two Water Worlds’ hypothesis suggests that trees can favour tightly bound soil water instead of readily available free-flowing soil water. Little is known about the specific sources of water used by subalpine trees Abies lasiocarpa (Subalpine fir) and Picea engelmannii (Engelmann spruce) in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. In this study, stable water isotope (δ18O and δ2H) samples were obtained from Subalpine fir and Engelmann spruce trees at three points of the growing season in combination with water sources available at time of sampling (snow, bound soil water, saturated soil water, precipitation). Using the Bayesian Mixing Model, MixSIAR, relative source water proportions were calculated. In the drought summer examined, there was a net loss of water via evapotranspiration from the system. Results highlighted the importance of tightly bound soil water to subalpine forests, providing insights of future health under sustained years of drought and net loss in summer growing seasons. This work builds upon concepts from the ‘Two Water Worlds’ hypothesis, showing that subalpine trees can draw from different water sources depending on season and availability. In our case, water use was largely driven by a tension gradient within the soil allowing trees to utilize tightly bound soil water and saturated soil water at differing points of the growing season.

A document by Keith Beven. Click on the document to view its contents.

This study compares the U.S. National Water Model (NWM) reanalysis snow outputs to observed snow water equivalent (SWE) and snow-covered area fraction (SCAF) at SNOTEL sites across the Western U.S. SWE was obtained from SNOTEL sites, while SCAF was obtained from MODIS observations at a nominal 500 m grid scale. Retrospective NWM results were at a 1000 m grid scale. We compared results for SNOTEL sites to gridded NWM and MODIS outputs for the grid cells encompassing each SNOTEL site. Differences between modeled and observed SWE were attributed to both model errors, as well as errors in inputs, notably precipitation and temperature. The NWM generally under-predicted SWE, partly due to precipitation input differences. There was also a slight general bias for model input temperature to be cooler than observed, counter to the direction expected to lead to under-modeling of SWE. There was also under-modeling of SWE for a subset of sites where precipitation inputs were good. Furthermore, the NWM generally tends to melt snow early. There was considerable variability between modeled and observed SCAF as well as the binary comparison of snow cover presence that hampered useful interpretation of SCAF comparisons. This is in part due to the shortcomings associated with both model SCAF parameterization and MODIS observations, particularly in vegetated regions. However, when SCAF was aggregated across all sites and years, modeled SCAF tended to be more than observed using MODIS. These differences are regional with generally better SWE and SCAF results in the Central Basin and Range and differences tending to become larger the further away regions are from this region. These findings identify areas where predictions from the NWM involving snow may be better or worse, and suggest opportunities for research directed towards model improvements.

Rock glaciers are increasingly influencing the hydrology and water chemistry of Alpine catchments, with important implications for drinking water quality and ecosystem health under a changing climate. During summers of 2017 - 2019, we monitored the physical and chemical conditions of springs emerging from two active rock glaciers (ZRG and SRG) with distinct geomorphological settings in the Eastern Italian Alps (Solda/Sulden catchment). Both springs had constantly cold waters (1.4 ± 0.1 °C), and their ionic composition was dominated by SO42-, HCO3-, Ca2+ and Mg2+. Concentrations of major ions and trace elements, and values of water isotopes (δ18O, δ2H), increased towards autumn with an asymptotic trend at SRG, and a positive unimodal pattern at ZRG, where concentrations peaked 60 - 80 days after the end of the snowmelt. Wavelet analysis on electrical conductivity (EC) and water temperature records revealed daily cycles only at SRG, and significant weekly/biweekly fluctuations at both springs attributable to oscillations of meteorological conditions. Several rainfall events triggered a transient (0.5 - 2 hrs) EC drop and water temperature rise (dilution and warming) at SRG, whereas only intense rainfall events occasionally increased EC at ZRG (solute enrichment and thermal buffering), with a long-lasting effect (6 - 48 hrs). Our results, supported by a limited but emerging literature, suggest that: i) the distinctive composition of the bedrock drives different concentrations of major ions and trace elements in rock glacier springs; ii) pond-like and stream-like springs have distinct fluctuations of water parameters at different timescales; iii) peaks of EC/solute concentrations indicate a seasonal window of major permafrost thaw for rock glaciers feeding pond-like springs. These results provide a first quantitative description of the hydrological seasonality in rock glacier outflows, and their hydrochemical response to precipitation events, bringing relevant information for water management in the European Alps under climate change.

Aggregate disintegration is a critical process in soil splash erosion. However, the effect of soil organic carbon (SOC) and its fractions on soil aggregates disintegration is still not clear. In this study, five soils with similar physical and chemical properties and different contents of SOC have been used. The effects of slaking and mechanical striking on splash erosion were distinguished by using deionized water and 95% ethanol as raindrops. The simulated rainfall experiments were carried out in four heights (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 m). The result indicated that the soil aggregate stability increased with the increases of SOC and light fraction organic carbon (LFOC). The relative slaking and the mechanical striking index increased with the decreases of SOC and LFOC. The reduction of macroaggregates in eroded soil gradually decreased with the increase of SOC and LFOC, especially in alcohol test. The amount of macroaggregates (>0.25mm) in deionized water tests were significantly less than that in alcohol tests under the same rainfall heights. The contribution of slaking to splash erosion increased with the decrease of heavy fractions organic carbon (HFOC). The contribution of mechanical striking was dominant when the rainfall kinetic energy increased to a range of threshold between 9 J m-2 mm-1 and 12 m-2 mm-1. This study could provide the scientific basis for deeply understanding the mechanism of soil aggregates disintegration and splash erosion.

The young water fraction (Fyw), the proportion of water younger than 2-3 months, was investigated in soil-, ground- and stream waters in the 0.56 Km2 sub-humid Mediterranean Can Vila catchment. Rain water was sampled at 5-mm rainfall intervals. Mobile soil water and groundwater were sampled fortnightly, using suction lysimeters and two shallow wells, respectively. Stream water was dynamically sampled at variable time intervals (30 minutes to 1 week), depending on flow. A total of 1,529 18O determinations obtained during 58 months were used. The usual hypothesis of rapid evapotranspiration of summer rainfall could not be maintained, leading to discard the use of an “effective precipitation” model. Soil mobile waters had Fyw up to 34%, while in ground and stream were strongly related to water table and discharge variations, respectively. In stream waters, due to the highly skewed flow duration curve, the flow-averaged young water fraction (F*yw) was 22.6%, whereas the time-averaged Fyw was 6.2%. Nevertheless, both F*yw and its exponential discharge sensitivity (Sd) showed relevant changes when different 12-month sampling periods were investigated. The availability of Sd and a detailed flow record allowed us to simulate the young water fraction that would be obtained with a virtual thorough sampling (F**yw). This showed that underestimation of F*yw is associated with missing the sampling of highest discharges and revealed underestimations of F*yw by 25% for the dynamic sampling and 66% for the weekly sampling. These results confirm that the young water fraction and its discharge sensitivity are metrics that depend more on precipitation forcing than on physiographic characteristics, so the comparisons between catchments should be based on mean annual values and inter-annual variability. They also support the dependence of the young water fraction on the sampling rate and show the advantages of flow-weighted F*yw. Water age investigations should be accompanied by the analysis of flow duration curves. In addition, the simulation of F**yw is proposed as a method for checking the adequacy of the sampling rate used.

A document by Tricia A. Stadnyk. Click on the document to view its contents.

It has been proposed that conservation laws might not be beneficial for accurate hydrological modeling due to errors in input (precipitation) and target (streamflow) data (particularly at the event time scale), and this might explain why deep learning models (which are not based on enforcing closure) can out-perform catchment-scale conceptual and process-based models at predicting streamflow. We test this hypothesis at the event and multi-year time scale using physics-informed (mass conserving) machine learning and find that: (1) enforcing closure in the rainfall-runoff mass balance does appear to harm the overall skill of hydrological models, (2) deep learning models learn to account for spatiotemporally variable biases in data (3) however this “closure” effect accounts for only a small fraction of the difference in predictive skill between deep learning and conceptual models.

A regional coupled approach to water cycle prediction is demonstrated for the 4-month period from November 2013 to February 2014 through analysis of precipitation, soil moisture, river flow and coastal ocean simulations produced by a km-scale atmosphere-land-ocean coupled system focussed on the United Kingdom (UK), running with horizontal grid spacing of around 1.5 km across all components. The Unified Model atmosphere component, in which convection is explicitly simulated, reproduces the observed UK rainfall accumulation (r2 of 0.62 for daily accumulation), but there is a notable bias in its distribution – too dry over western upland areas and too wet further east. The JULES land surface model soil moisture state is shown to be in broad agreement with a limited number of cosmic-ray neutron probe observations. A comparison of observed and simulated river flow shows the coupled system is useful for predicting broad scale features, such as distinguishing high and low flow regions and times during the period of interest but are shown to be less accurate than optimised hydrological models. The impact of simulated river discharge on NEMO model simulations of coastal ocean state is explored in the coupled system, with comparisons provided relative to experiments using climatological river input and no river input around the UK coasts. Results show that the freshwater flux around the UK contributes of order 0.2 psu to the mean surface salinity, and comparisons to profile observations give evidence of an improved vertical structure when applying simulated flows. This study represents a baseline assessment of the coupled system performance, with priorities for future model developments discussed.

Soil moisture is an important driver of growth in boreal Alaska, but estimating soil hydraulic parameters can be challenging in this data-sparse region. To better identify soil hydraulic parameters and quantify energy and water balance and soil moisture dynamics, we applied the physically-based, one-dimensional ecohydrologic Simultaneous Heat and Water (SHAW) model, loosely coupled with the Geophysical Institute of Permafrost Laboratory (GIPL) model, to an upland deciduous forest stand in interior Alaska over a 13-year period. Using a Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) parameterization, SHAW reproduced interannual and vertical spatial variability of soil moisture during a five-year validation period quite well, with root mean squared error (RMSE) of volumetric water content at 0.5 m as low as 0.020. Many parameter sets reproduced reasonable soil moisture dynamics, suggesting considerable equifinality. Model performance generally declined in the eight-year validation period, indicating some overfitting and demonstrating the importance of interannual variability in model evaluation. We compared the performance of parameter sets selected based on traditional performance measures (RMSE) that minimize error in soil moisture simulation, with those that were designed to minimize the dependence of model performance on interannual climate variability. The latter case moderately decreases traditional model performance but is likely more suitable for climate change applications, for which it is important that model error is independent from climate variability. These findings illustrate (1) that the SHAW model, coupled with GIPL, can adequately simulate soil moisture dynamics in this boreal deciduous region, (2) the importance of interannual variability in model parameterization, and (3) a novel objective function for parameter selection to improve applicability in non-stationary climates.

The main objective of this study was to use an uncertainty version of a widely used monthly time step, semi-distributed model (the Pitman model) to explore the equifinalities in the way in which the main hydrological processes are simulated and any identifiable linkages with uncertainties in the available observational data. The study area is the Zambezi River basin and 18 gauged sub-basins have been included in the analyses. Unfortunately, it is not generally possible to quantify some of the observational uncertainties in such a data scarce area and mostly we are limited to identifying where these data are clearly deficient (i.e. erroneous or non-representative). The overall conclusion is that the equifinalities in the model are hugely dominant in terms of the uncertainties in the relative occurrence of different runoff generating processes, although water use uncertainties in the semi-arid parts of the basin can contribute to these uncertainties. The identification of landscape features that suggest the occurrence of saturation excess surface runoff provides some information to constrain the model. Improved independent estimates of groundwater recharge is also identified as a key source of observational data that would help a great deal in constraining the model parameter space and therefore reducing some of the model equifinality.

Fully coupled atmospheric-hydrological models allow a more realistic representation of the land surface–boundary layer continuum, representing both high-resolution land-surface/subsurface water lateral redistribution and the related feedback towards the atmosphere. This study evaluates the potential contribution of the fully coupled approach in extended-range mesoscale hydrometeorological ensemble forecasts. Previous studies have shown, for deterministic simulations, that the effect of fully coupling for short-range forecasts is minor compared to other sources of uncertainty, however, it becomes not negligible when increasing the forecast period. Through a proof-of-concept consisting of an ensemble (50 members from the ECMWF Ensemble Prediction System) seven-days-in-advance forecast of a high impact event affecting the Calabrian peninsula (southern Italy, Mediterranean basin) on November 2019, the paper elucidates the extent to which the improved representation of the terrestrial water lateral transport in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) – Hydro modeling system affects the ensemble water balance, focusing on the precipitation and the hydrological response, in terms of both soil moisture dynamics and streamflow in 14 catchments spanning over 42% of the region. The fully coupled approach caused an increase of surface soil moisture and latent heat flux from land in the days preceding the event, partially affecting the lower Planetary Boundary Layer. However, when shoreward moisture transport from surrounding sea rapidly increased becoming the dominant process, only a weak signature of soil moisture contribution could be detected, resulting in only slightly higher precipitation forecast and not clear variation trend of peak flow, even though the latter variable increased up to 10% in some catchments. Overall, this study highlighted a remarkable performance of the medium-range ensemble forecasts, suggesting a profitable use of the fully coupled approach for forecasting purposes in circumstances in which soil moisture dynamics is more relevant and needs to be better addressed.

Permafrost thaw has been observed in recent decades in the Northern Hemisphere and is expected to accelerate with continued global warming. Predicting the future of permafrost requires proper representation of the interrelated surface/subsurface thermal and hydrologic regimes. Land surface models (LSMs) are well suited for such predictions, as they couple heat and water interactions across soil-vegetation-atmosphere interfaces and can be applied over large scales. LSMs, however, are challenged by the long-term thermal and hydraulic memories of permafrost and the paucity of historical records to represent permafrost dynamics under transient climate conditions. In this study, we address the challenge of model initialization by characterizing the impact of initial climate conditions and initial soil frozen and liquid water contents on the simulation length required to reach equilibrium. Further, we quantify how the uncertainty in model initialization propagates to simulated permafrost dynamics. Modelling experiments are conducted with the Modélisation Environmentale Communautaire – Surface and Hydrology (MESH) framework and its embedded Canadian Land Surface Scheme (CLASS). The study area is in the Liard River basin in the Northwest Territories of Canada with sporadic and discontinuous regions. Results show that uncertainty in model initialization controls various attributes of simulated permafrost, especially the active layer thickness, which could change by 0.5-1.5m depending on the initial condition chosen. The least number of spin-up cycles is achieved with near field capacity condition, but the number of cycles varies depending on the spin-up year climate. We advise an extended spin-up of 200-1000 cycles to ensure proper model initialization under different climatic conditions and initial soil moisture contents.

Artificial subsurface (tile) drainage is used to increase trafficability and crop yield in much of the Midwest due to soils with naturally poor drainage. Tile drainage has been researched extensively at the field scale, but knowledge gaps remain on how tile drainage influences the streamflow response at the watershed scale. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of tile drainage on the streamflow response for 59 Ohio watersheds with varying percentages of tile drainage and explore patterns between the Western Lake Erie Bloom Severity Index to streamflow response in heavily tile-drained watersheds. Daily streamflow was downloaded from 2010-2019 and used to calculated mean annual peak daily runoff, mean annual runoff ratio, the percent of observations in which daily runoff exceeded mean annual runoff (TQmean), baseflow versus stormflow percentages, and the streamflow recession constant. Heavily-drained watersheds (> 40 % of watershed area) consistently reported flashier streamflow behavior compared to watersheds with low percentages of tile drainage (< 15% of watershed area) as indicated by significantly lower baseflow percentages, TQmean, and streamflow recession constants. The mean baseflow percent for watersheds with high percentages of tile drainage was 20.9 % compared to 40.3 % for watersheds with low percentages of tile drainage. These results are in contrast to similar research regionally indicating greater baseflow proportions and less flashy hydrographs (higher TQmean) for heavily-drained watersheds. Stormflow runoff metrics in heavily-drained watersheds were significantly positively correlated to western Lake Erie algal bloom severity. Given the recent trend in more frequent large rain events and warmer temperatures in the Midwest, increased harmful algal bloom severity will continue to be an ecological and economic problem for the region if management efforts are not addressed at the source. Management practices that reduce the streamflow response time to storm events, such as buffer strips, wetland restoration, or drainage water management, are likely to improve the aquatic health conditions of downstream communities by limiting the transport of nutrients following storm events.