Evaluation of lacustrine groundwater discharge, hydrologic partitioning, and nutrient budgets in a proglacial lake in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau: using &amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;222&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;Rn and stable isotopes

Xin Luo,Rong Mao,Jiu Jimmy Jiao,Hailong Li,Xiaolang Zhang,Sihai Liang,Xingxing Kuang

doi:10.5194/hess-22-5579-2018

Abstract

Abstract. Proglacial lakes are good natural laboratories to investigate groundwater and glacier dynamics under current climate conditions and to explore biogeochemical cycling under pristine lake status. This study conducted a series of investigations of 222Rn, stable isotopes, nutrients, and other hydrogeochemical parameters in Ximen Co Lake, a remote proglacial lake in the east of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP). A radon mass balance model was used to quantify the lacustrine groundwater discharge (LGD) of the lake, leading to an LGD estimate of 10.3±8.2 mm d−1. Based on the three-endmember models of stable 18O and Cl−, the hydrologic partitioning of the lake is obtained, which shows that groundwater discharge only accounts for 7.0 % of the total water input. The groundwater-derived DIN and DIP loadings constitute 42.9 % and 5.5 % of the total nutrient loading to the lakes, indicating the significance of LGD in delivering disproportionate DIN into the lake. This study presents the first attempt to evaluate the LGD and hydrologic partitioning in the glacial lake by coupling radioactive and stable isotopic approaches and the findings advance the understanding of nutrient budgets in the proglacial lakes of the QTP. The study is also instructional in revealing the hydrogeochemical processes in proglacial lakes elsewhere.

Highlights

High-altitude and high-latitude areas are intensively influenced by the melting of glaciers due to climatic warming
A 222Rn continuous monitoring is conducted at Ximen Co Lake, a proglacial lake located in the eastern Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP)
A dynamic 222Rn mass balance model constrained by radium mass balance and water level fluctuation is used to quantify temporal distribution of the lacustrine groundwater discharge (LGD) of the lake

Summary

Introduction

High-altitude and high-latitude areas are intensively influenced by the melting of glaciers due to climatic warming. The proglacial lakes are usually located close to the ice front of a glacier, ice cap, or ice sheet, with the vicinity to the ice front sometimes defined as the areas with subrecent moraines and formed by the last significant glacier advances at the end of the Little Ice Age (Heckmann et al, 2016; Barry, 2006; Slaymaker, 2011; Harris et al, 2009). The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP), the third pole of the world, serves as the water tower of most of the major rivers in Asia (Qiu, 2008) Unique landscapes such as endorheric lakes, permafrost, glaciers, and headwater fluvial networks are developed due to the intensive interaction between the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and cryosphere (Lei et al, 2017; Zhang et al, 2017a, b; Yao et al, 2012, 2013).

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