Abstract
Abstract. Scotty Creek, Northwest Territories (NWT), Canada, has been the focus of hydrological research for nearly three decades. Over this period, field and modelling studies have generated new insights into the thermal and physical mechanisms governing the flux and storage of water in the wetland-dominated regions of discontinuous permafrost that characterises much of the Canadian and circumpolar subarctic. Research at Scotty Creek has coincided with a period of unprecedented climate warming, permafrost thaw, and resulting land cover transformations including the expansion of wetland areas and loss of forests. This paper (1) synthesises field and modelling studies at Scotty Creek, (2) highlights the key insights of these studies on the major water flux and storage processes operating within and between the major land cover types, and (3) provides insights into the rate and pattern of the permafrost-thaw-induced land cover change and how such changes will affect the hydrology and water resources of the study region.
Highlights
The circumpolar region of the Northern Hemisphere is warming more rapidly than any other on Earth (RichterMenge et al, 2017). This diverse region contains extensive coverage of boreal forest, taiga, tundra, polar desert, glaciers, wetland, and open water including some of the largest lakes, rivers, and deltas in the world, all of which are changing in various ways and degrees in response to climate warming
Isolated collapsed wetlands are large in number, they account for less than 5% of the Scotty Creek catchment, while the area occupied by connected collapsed wetlands is more than 5 times larger and roughly equivalent to the area occupied by channel fens (Quinton et al, 2009a)
Linear disturbances, including winter roads and seismic lines introduced to Scotty Creek between 1942 and 1985, present a case of preferential permafrost thaw worthy of study for two main reasons: (1) the wide occurrence of these features through the boreal and subarctic regions raises the question of their impact on local and basin runoff processes and (2) new knowledge on how permafrost thaw beneath such disturbances affects hydrological processes can be applied throughout these regions
Summary
The circumpolar region of the Northern Hemisphere is warming more rapidly than any other on Earth (RichterMenge et al, 2017). MAGS researchers in collaboration with government agencies expanded precipitation and stream gauging networks in the lower Liard River valley, where they improved the understanding of the water sources and pathways giving rise to stream hydrographs (Gibson et al, 1993) This led to advancements in the ability to simulate the hydrological response of basins in this region (e.g. Pietroniro et al, 1996; Hamlin et al, 1998). The Scotty Creek headwater area (hereafter “Scotty Creek”) refers to the upper half of the basin (Fig. 1b) that is underlain by discontinuous permafrost (Hegginbottom and Radburn, 1992) and blanketed with a continuous cover of peat These characteristics are typical of the continental high boreal wetland region (NWWG, 1988), where peat accumulations in the range of 2 m (McClymont et al, 2013) to 8 m (Braverman and Quinton, 2016) typically overlie a clay/silt-clay glacial till deposit of low permeability (Aylsworth and Kettles, 2000). The final section discusses ongoing research and future studies at Scotty Creek
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