The Demographics of Water: A Review of Water Ages in the Critical Zone

Publikation: Beitrag in FachzeitschriftÜbersichtsartikel (Review)BeigetragenBegutachtung

Beitragende

  • Matthias Sprenger - , Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Instituto de Diagnostico Ambiental y Estudios del Agua (IDAEA-CSIC), North Carolina State University (Autor:in)
  • Christine Stumpp - , Universität für Bodenkultur Wien (Autor:in)
  • Markus Weiler - , Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Autor:in)
  • Werner Aeschbach - , Universität Heidelberg (Autor:in)
  • Scott T. Allen - , ETH Zurich (Autor:in)
  • Paolo Benettin - , École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Autor:in)
  • Maren Dubbert - , Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Autor:in)
  • Andreas Hartmann - , Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, University of Bristol (Autor:in)
  • Markus Hrachowitz - , Technische Universität Delft (Autor:in)
  • James W. Kirchner - , ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (Autor:in)
  • Jeffrey J. McDonnell - , University of Saskatchewan, Ludong University, University of Birmingham (Autor:in)
  • Natalie Orlowski - , Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Autor:in)
  • Daniele Penna - , Università degli Studi di Firenze (Autor:in)
  • Stephan Pfahl - , Freie Universität (FU) Berlin (Autor:in)
  • Michael Rinderer - , Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Autor:in)
  • Nicolas Rodriguez - , Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (Autor:in)
  • Maximilian Schmidt - , Universität Heidelberg (Autor:in)
  • Christiane Werner - , Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Autor:in)

Abstract

The time that water takes to travel through the terrestrial hydrological cycle and the critical zone is of great interest in Earth system sciences with broad implications for water quality and quantity. Most water age studies to date have focused on individual compartments (or subdisciplines) of the hydrological cycle such as the unsaturated or saturated zone, vegetation, atmosphere, or rivers. However, recent studies have shown that processes at the interfaces between the hydrological compartments (e.g., soil-atmosphere or soil-groundwater) govern the age distribution of the water fluxes between these compartments and thus can greatly affect water travel times. The broad variation from complete to nearly absent mixing of water at these interfaces affects the water ages in the compartments. This is especially the case for the highly heterogeneous critical zone between the top of the vegetation and the bottom of the groundwater storage. Here, we review a wide variety of studies about water ages in the critical zone and provide (1) an overview of new prospects and challenges in the use of hydrological tracers to study water ages, (2) a discussion of the limiting assumptions linked to our lack of process understanding and methodological transfer of water age estimations to individual disciplines or compartments, and (3) a vision for how to improve future interdisciplinary efforts to better understand the feedbacks between the atmosphere, vegetation, soil, groundwater, and surface water that control water ages in the critical zone.

Details

OriginalspracheEnglisch
Seiten (von - bis)800-834
Seitenumfang35
FachzeitschriftReviews of geophysics
Jahrgang57
Ausgabenummer3
PublikationsstatusVeröffentlicht - 1 Sept. 2019
Peer-Review-StatusJa
Extern publiziertJa

Externe IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-0407-742X/work/142242616
ORCID /0000-0003-4368-4580/work/163293731

Schlagworte

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Schlagwörter

  • critical Zone, stable isotopes, terrestrial water cycle, tracer hydrology, travel times, water ages

Bibliotheksschlagworte