Comment on hess-2022-18

Abstract

Determining the mean transit times (MTTs) and water sources in catchments at different flow conditions helps better understand river functioning, manage riverine system health and water resources, and discern the responses to climate change and global water stress. Despite being common in a range of environments, understanding of MTTs and variable water sources in intermittent streams remain incomplete compared to perennial streams. Major ion geochemistry, stable isotopes, 14C, 3H and were used in this study to identify water sources and MTTs of a periodically-intermittent river from southeast Australia at different flow conditions, including zero-flow periods. The disconnected pool waters during the zero-flow period in the summer months of 2019 had 3H activities of 0.64 to 3.29 TU. These and the variations in total dissolved solids and stable isotopes imply that these pools contained a mixture of groundwater and younger evaporated stream water. 3H activities during the high-flow period in July 2019 were 1.85 to 3.00 TU, yielding MTTs of up to 17 years. The 3H activities at moderate and low-flow conditions in September and November 2019 ranged from 2.26 to 2.88 TU, implying MTTs of 1.6 to 7.8 years. Regional groundwater near the Wimmera River has 3H activities of < 0.02 to 0.45 TU and 14C activities of 57 to 103 pMC and is not recharged by the river at high flows. The Wimmera River and other intermittent streams in southeast Australia are sustained by smaller volumes of younger catchment waters than comparable perennials streams, indicating that near-river stores have significant impacts on maintaining streamflow during low-flow periods than older deeper regional groundwater. These smaller reservoirs result in the intermittent streams being more susceptible to changes of climate and streamflow and necessitate protection of near-river corridors to maintain the health of the riverine systems.