Salinograph trends as indicators of the recession characteristics of stream components |
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| Authors: | A D Werner M Wood C T Simmons D A Lockington |
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| Institution: | 1. School of Chemistry, Physics and Earth Sciences, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001, Australia;2. Division of Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld 4072, Australia |
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| Abstract: | Compared to hydrograph recession analysis, which is widely applied in engineering hydrology, the quantitative assessment of stream salinity with time (i.e. the salinograph) has received significantly less attention. In particular, while in many previous hydrological studies an inverse relationship between hydrograph and salinograph responses is apparent, the concept of salinity accession (the inversely related salinity counterpart to hydrograph recession) has not been introduced nor quantitatively evaluated in previous literature. In this study, we conduct a mathematical analysis of salinograph accession, and determine new quantitative relationships between salinity accession and hydrograph recession parameters. An equation is formulated that reproduces the general trend in salinity accession. A salinity accession parameter kc is then introduced and is shown to be the ratio of direct runoff to total stream flow recession parameters: kr/k. The groundwater recession parameter kg was estimated using a simple and rapid method that uses both salinograph and hydrograph data. Salinity accession type‐curves illustrate that under certain conditions, the relative steepness of individual salinographs is dependent upon the ratio of groundwater salinity to direct runoff salinity: Cg/Cr. The salinity accession algorithms are applied to two contrasting field settings: Scott Creek, South Australia and Sandy Creek, northern Queensland, Australia. It was found that kg > k during periods of obvious stream flow recession, for the events analysed. Salinograph accession behaviour was fairly similar for both sites, despite contrasting environments. Using assumed end‐member salinities for groundwater and direct runoff based upon field observations, the behaviour of kc from the Scott Creek site was approximately reproduced by varying the initial groundwater to runoff flow ratio: Qg0/Qr0, within reasonable parameter ranges. The use of salinograph information when used in addition to standard hydrograph analyses provided useful information on recession characteristics of stream components. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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| Keywords: | recession analysis base flow separation groundwater‐surface water interaction salinograph |
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