Abstract
This paper introduces and tests the Sediment Bed Borehole Advection Method (SBBAM), a low cost, point-measurement technique which utilizes a push-point probe to quantify the vertical direction and magnitude of Darcy flux at the surface water—groundwater sediment interface. The Darcy flux measurements are derived from the residence-time analysis of tracer arrival calculated from measured tracer concentration time-series data. The technique was evaluated in the laboratory using a sediment bed simulator tank at eight flow rates (1–90 cm/day). Triplicate test runs for each flow rate returned average errors between 4–20 percent; r2 = 0.9977.
Highlights
Flows within sediments near the surface water–groundwater (SW-GW) interface are a controlling factor for hydraulic residence times, chemical fate and transport dynamics, biogeochemical processes, and ecological community structure [1]
We found that our tracer responses behaved in a strong plug flow mode
Tests run in the upward flow direction confirmed that no tracer solution was observed at the bottom sensor, not even at the lowest rates
Summary
Flows within sediments near the surface water–groundwater (SW-GW) interface are a controlling factor for hydraulic residence times, chemical fate and transport dynamics, biogeochemical processes, and ecological community structure [1]. This transition zone has been recognized as a major influence on the water budgets and mass balances of solutes within aquatic systems [2,3]. Exchange flows can be challenging to measure accurately due to sediment heterogeneity and the need to integrate measurements at different scales [3,4]
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