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The effect of riparian land use on transport hydraulics in agricultural headwater streams located in northeast Ohio, USA
Author(s) -
Herrman Kyle S.,
Bouchard Virginie,
Granata Tim,
Carey Anne E.,
Moore Richard H.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
hydrological processes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.222
H-Index - 161
eISSN - 1099-1085
pISSN - 0885-6087
DOI - 10.1002/hyp.7489
Subject(s) - streams , riparian zone , hydrology (agriculture) , environmental science , watershed , residence time (fluid dynamics) , agricultural land , hydraulics , inflow , land use , riparian buffer , geology , ecology , habitat , computer network , geotechnical engineering , machine learning , aerospace engineering , computer science , engineering , biology , oceanography
This study examined if riparian land use (forested vs agricultural) affects hydraulic transport in headwater streams located in an agriculturally fragmented watershed. We identified paired 50‐m reaches (one reach in agricultural land use and the other in forested land use) along three headwater streams in the Upper Sugar Creek Watershed in northeast Ohio, USA (40° 51′42″N, 81° 50′29″W). Using breakthrough curves obtained by Rhodamine WT slug injections and the one‐dimensional transport with inflow and storage model (OTIS), hydraulic transport parameters were obtained for each reach on six different occasions ( n = 36). Relative transient storage ( A S : A ) was similar between both reach types (As: A = 0·3 ± 0·1 for both agricultural and forested reaches). Comparing values of F med 200 to those in the literature indicates that the effect of transient storage was moderately high in the study streams in the Upper Sugar Creek Watershed. Examining travel times revealed that overall residence time (HRT) and residence time in transient storage ( T STO ) were both longer in forested reaches (forested HRT = 19·1 ± 11·5 min and T STO = 4·0 ± 3·8 min; agricultural HRT = 9·3 ± 5·3 min and T STO = 1·7 ± 1·4 min). We concluded that the effect of transient storage on solute transport was similar between the forested and agricultural reaches but the forested reaches had a greater potential to retain solutes as a result of longer travel times. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.