Open AccessRelationship between variability of hydrological and hydrochemical properties of runoff and basin landscape structure in the taiga zone
Author(s) -
А.В. Хорошев,
A. N. Lukyanova,
Aleksey G. Kositskiy,
D. I. Shkolny
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
izvestiâ russkogo geografičeskogo obŝestva
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 0869-6071
DOI - 10.31857/s0869-6071151145-60
Subject(s) - tributary , surface runoff , hydrology (agriculture) , structural basin , drainage basin , environmental science , arable land , geology , geography , ecology , geomorphology , cartography , geotechnical engineering , biology , archaeology , agriculture
The research focuses on dependence of inter-year and inter-seasonal variability of hydrological and hydrochemical properties in lower gauge lines of small rivers on landscape structure of a basin as a whole. We used the example of the Zayachya river (Ustyansky district, Arkhangelsk Region) and basins of its tributaries with different shares of forests and cultivated lands to test the hypothesis that certain regional-specific proportions and neighborhoods of land use types ensure low variability of hydrological and hydrochemical regime. We performed measurements in all seasons in 2013—2017 in 15 gauge lines. Correlation analysis showed evidence that decrease in forest areas and increase in arable lands and meadows in the deeply dissected agrolandscape results in new emergent properties of the river basins geosystems: waters shift for calcium to magnesium class, amplitudes of hydrochemical properties fluctuations change as well as that of discharge. Agrolandscapes induce decrease of runoff yearly fluctuations and increase of discharge. Forest cover supports natural fluctuations of river hydrochemistry due to sharp difference in mineralization between floods and low water periods. Decrease of forest proportion in a basin up to 30 % and lower causes the contents of hydrocarbonates, calcium and magnesium during spring floods to be similar to high content during low water period despite strong dilution.