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The highly dynamic processes within a hillslope-riparian-stream (HRS) continuum are known to affect streamflow generation, but are yet not fully understood. Within this study, we simulated a headwater HRS continuum in western Luxembourg with an integrated hydrologic surface subsurface model (HydroGeoSphere). The model was setup with thorough consideration of catchment-specific attributes and we performed a multicriteria model evaluation (4 years) with special focus on the temporally varying spatial patterns of surface saturation. We used a portable thermal infrared (TIR) camera to map surface saturation with a high spatial resolution and collected 20 panoramic snapshots of the riparian zone (approx. 10 m 3 20 m) under different hydrologic conditions. Qualitative and quantitative comparison of the processed TIR panoramas and the corresponding model output panoramas revealed a good agreement between spatiotemporal dynamic model and field surface saturation patterns. A double logarithmic linear relationship between surface saturation extent and discharge was similar for modeled and observed data. This provided confidence in the capability of an integrated hydrologic surface subsurface model to represent temporal and spatial water flux dynamics at small (HRS continuum) scales. However, model scenarios with different parameterizations of the riparian zone showed that discharge and surface saturation were controlled by different parameters and hardly influenced each other. Surface saturation only affected very fast runoff responses with a small volumetric contribution to stream discharge, indicating that the dynamic surface saturation in the riparian zone does not necessarily imply a major control on runoff generation.

[1] Wetlands provide important ecohydrological services by regulating fluxes of nutrients and pollutants to receiving waters, which can in turn mitigate adverse effects on water quality. Turnover of redox-sensitive solutes in wetlands has been shown to take place in distinct spatial and temporal patterns, commonly referred to as hot spots and hot moments. Despite the importance of such patterns for solute fluxes the mechanistic understanding of their formation is still weak and their existence is often explained by variations in soil properties and diffusive transport only. Here we show that surface micro-topography in wetlands can cause the formation of biogeochemical hot spots solely by the advective redistribution of infiltrating water as a result of complex subsurface flow patterns. Surface and subsurface flows are simulated for an idealized section of a riparian wetland using a fully integrated numerical code for coupled surface-subsurface systems. Biogeochemical processes and transport along advective subsurface flow paths are simulated kinetically using the biogeochemical code PHREEQC. Distinct patterns of biogeochemical activity (expressed as reaction rates) develop in response to micro-topography induced subsurface flow patterns. Simulated vertical pore water profiles for various redox-sensitive species resemble profiles observed in the field. This mechanistic explanation of hot spot formation complements the more static explanations that relate hot spots solely to spatial variability in soil characteristics and can account for spatial as well as temporal variability of biogeochemical activity, which is needed to assess future changes in the biogeochemical turnover of wetland systems.Citation: Frei, S., K. H. Knorr, S. Peiffer, and J. H. Fleckenstein (2012), Surface micro-topography causes hot spots of biogeochemical activity in wetland systems: A virtual modeling experiment,

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