How landscape organization and scale shape catchment hydrology and biogeochemistry: insights from a long‐term catchment study

Abstract

Catchment science plays a critical role in the protection of water resources in the face of ongoing changes in climate, long‐range transport of air pollutants, and land use. Addressing these challenges, however, requires improved understanding of how, when, and where changes in water quantity and quality occur within river networks. To reach these goals, we must recognize how different catchment features are organized to regulate surface chemistry at multiple scales, from processes controlling headwaters, to the downstream mixing of water from multiple landscape sources and deep aquifers. Here we synthesize 30‐years of hydrological and biogeochemical research from the Krycklan catchment study (KCS) in northern Sweden to demonstrate the benefits of coupling long‐term monitoring with multi‐scale research to advance our understanding of catchment functioning across space and time. We show that the regulation of hydrological and biogeochemical patterns in the KCS can be decomposed into four, hierarchically structured landscape features that include: (1) transmissivity and reactivity of dominant source layers within riparian soils, (2) spatial arrangement of groundwater input zones that govern water and solute fluxes at reach‐ to segment‐scales, (3) landscape scale heterogeneity (forests, mires, and lakes) that generates unique biogeochemical signals downstream, and (4) broad‐scale mixing of surface streams with deep groundwater contributions. While this set of features are perhaps specific to the study region, analogous hierarchical controls are likely to be widespread. Resolving these scale dependent processes is important for predicting how, when, and where different environmental changes may influence patterns of surface water chemistry within river networks. WIREs Water 2018, 5:e1265. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1265This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Hydrological Processes Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Science of Water > Methods