A Conceptual Model for Anticipating the Impact of Landscape Evolution on Groundwater Recharge in Degrading Permafrost Environments

Abstract

Temperatures in the arctic and subarctic are rising at more than twice the rate of the global average, driving the accelerated thawing of permafrost across the region. The impacts of permafrost degradation have been studied in the discontinuous permafrost zone at Umiujaq, in northern Quebec, Canada, for over 30 years, but the effects of changing land cover on groundwater recharge are not well understood. The water table fluctuation method was used to compute groundwater recharge using 4 years of water level data and soil moisture readings from five field sites characteristic of different stages of permafrost degradation and vegetation invasion. Results indicate that as vegetation grows taller, groundwater recharge increases, likely due to increased snow thickness. Results were then combined with a preexisting conceptual model that describes the evolution from tundra to shrubland and forests to create a new model for describing how groundwater recharge is affected by landscape evolution.

Guidelines for cold‐regions groundwater numerical modeling

“…This domain boundary represents the location of the primary thermal forcing in response to climate change. Many cold‐region surface processes, such as snow cover insulation, snow redistribution, shifts in vegetation, differential radiation due to slope aspect, turbulent fluxes, and seasonally variable albedo, significantly impact the ground thermal and hydrologic conditions (Jorgenson et al, 2010; Shur & Jorgenson, 2007; Young, Lemieux, Delottier, Fortier, & Fortier, 2020). Depending on the setting, some of these processes strongly influence land surface temperatures (Goodrich, 1982; Zhang, 2005), which in turn will impact the distribution of frozen ground and groundwater flow patterns (Connon, Devoie, Hayashi, Veness, & Quinton, 2018; Huang et al, 2020; Kurylyk, MacQuarrie, & McKenzie, 2014; Qi et al, 2019).…”

Quantifying Groundwater Recharge Dynamics and Unsaturated Zone Processes in Snow‐Dominated Catchments via On‐Site Dissolved Gas Analysis

“…As boreal forests are subject to strong climate change impacts, quantifying recharge in these systems is particularly important for the sustainable management of water resources (Luke et al., 2007). The effects of winter hydrological processes on the availability of freshwater are so important for the sustainable management of drinking water resources that they are subject of countless ongoing research efforts (Lafrenière & Lamoureux, 2019; Sturm, 2015; Walvoord & Kurylyk, 2016; Young et al., 2020) and are hotly debated (Sturm et al., 2017).…”

“…As boreal forests are subject to strong climate change impacts, quantifying recharge in these systems is particularly important for the sustainable management of water resources (Luke et al, 2007). The effects of winter hydrological processes on the availability of freshwater are so important for the sustainable management of drinking water resources that they are subject of countless ongoing research efforts (Lafrenière & Lamoureux, 2019;Sturm, 2015;Walvoord & Kurylyk, 2016;Young et al, 2020) and are hotly debated (Sturm et al, 2017). While many components of the hydrological cycle, including streamflow, spring discharge, precipitation and GW levels can be measured with reasonably high precision and accuracy, recharge cannot be measured directly beyond the point scale (Healy & Scanlon, 2010;Scanlon et al, 2002).…”

Role of Groundwater in Sustaining Northern Himalayan Rivers

“…Furthermore, groundwater systems have more far‐reaching impacts on ecohydrological processes. Thawing permafrost under climatic warming can increase infiltration to the water table and facilitate vegetation growth (Young et al., 2020), but also can lead to vegetation degradation due to declining water tables (Jin et al., 2020). Previous studies on the role of Himalayans groundwater were based on hydrological separation or water balance models (Andermann et al., 2012; Schmidt et al., 2020), and the spatial groundwater flow patterns, the magnitude and seasonal distribution of groundwater recharge and discharge to rivers in Himalayan region and the factors that control these distributions are poorly understood.…”