Abstract
Abstract. Baseflow to rivers comprises regional groundwater and lower-salinity intermediate water stores such as interflow, soil water, and bank return flows. Chemical mass balance (CMB) calculations based on the specific conductivity (SC) of rivers potentially estimate the groundwater contribution to baseflow. This study discusses the application of the CMB approach in rivers from south-eastern Australia and assesses the feasibility of calibrating recursive digital filters (RDFs) and sliding minima (SM) techniques based on streamflow data to estimate groundwater inflows. The common strategy of assigning the SC of groundwater inflows based on the highest annual river SC may not always be valid due to the persistent presence of lower-salinity intermediate waters. Rather, using the river SC from low-flow periods during drought years may be more realistic. If that is the case, the estimated groundwater inflows may be lower than expected, which has implications for assessing contaminant transport and the impacts of near-river groundwater extraction. Probably due to long-term variations in the proportion of groundwater in baseflow, the RDF and SM techniques cannot generally be calibrated using the CMB results to estimate annual baseflow proportions. Thus, it is not possible to extend the estimates of groundwater inflows using those methods, although in some catchments reasonable estimates of groundwater inflows can be made from annual streamflows. Short-term variations in the composition of baseflow also lead to baseflow estimates made using the CMB method being far more irregular than expected. This study illustrates that estimating baseflow, especially groundwater inflows, is not straightforward.
Highlights
Documenting the sources of water in rivers is required to understand catchment hydrology and to manage and protect water resources (Brunke and Gonser, 1997; Winter, 1999; Sophocleous, 2002; McCallum et al, 2010; Cranswick and Cook, 2015; Stoelzle et al, 2020)
If rivers receive substantial groundwater inflows, the groundwater may be a source of contaminants (Bardsley et al, 2015; Crabit et al, 2016) and streamflow may be significantly reduced if near-river groundwater extraction occurs (Gleeson and Richter, 2018)
While it is well understood that rivers interact with several catchment water stores, understanding those interactions is difficult
Summary
Documenting the sources of water in rivers is required to understand catchment hydrology and to manage and protect water resources (Brunke and Gonser, 1997; Winter, 1999; Sophocleous, 2002; McCallum et al, 2010; Cranswick and Cook, 2015; Stoelzle et al, 2020). If rivers receive substantial groundwater inflows, the groundwater may be a source of contaminants (Bardsley et al, 2015; Crabit et al, 2016) and streamflow may be significantly reduced if near-river groundwater extraction occurs (Gleeson and Richter, 2018). These impacts potentially adversely affect the utility of surface water resources and riverine ecosystems. Baseflow represents water stored in the catchment that sustains streamflow between precipitation events. Regional groundwater may be a significant component of baseflow in gaining rivers; displaced soil water, in-
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