Estimation of snow and glacier melt contribution to Liddar stream in a mountainous catchment, western Himalaya: an isotopic approach

Jeelani, Ghulam; Shah, Rouf Ahmad; Jacob, Noble; Deshpande, R.D.

doi:10.1080/10256016.2016.1186671

Cited by 56 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…It is more difficult to compare our computed fractions of glacier melt in stream water with estimates in other sites because they can be highly dependent on the yearly climatic variability, on the proportion of glacierized area in the catchment and because they are usually reported at the monthly or yearly scale. However, when considering the total meltwater contribution, the computed fractions for the June-August period agree reasonably well with those recently estimated at the seasonal scale in other high-elevation catchments by Pu et al (2013) (41-62, 12 % of glacierized area), Fan et al (2015) (26-69 %), Xing et al (2015) (almost 60 %) and at the annual scale by Jeelani et al (2016) (52, 3 % of glacierized area), and are even higher than those computed by Mukhopadhyay and Khan (2015) (25-36 %). These observations stress the importance of water resources stored within the cryosphere even in catchments with limited extent of glacierized area, such as the Saldur catchment.…”

Section: Role Of Snowmelt and Glacier Melt On Streamflowsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…The spatial and temporal variability of an end-member tracer signal is usually very difficult to characterize at the catchment scale (Hoeg et al, 2000), especially in glacierized catchments (Jeelani et al, 2016), and it can noticeably affect the uncertainty of the results of mixing models. Since field measurements cannot reliably capture such a large spatial and temporal variability, we identified four different scenarios of mixing model application, assuming that they were representative for this variability.…”

Section: Scenarios Of Mixing Model Applicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Towards a tracer-based conceptualization of meltwater dynamics and streamflow response in a glacierized catchment

Penna

Engel

Bertoldi

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Multiple water sources and the physiographic heterogeneity of glacierized catchments hamper a complete conceptualization of runoff response to meltwater dynamics. In this study, we used environmental tracers (stable isotopes of water and electrical conductivity) to obtain new insight into the hydrology of glacierized catchments, using the Saldur River catchment, Italian Alps, as a pilot site. We analysed the controls on the spatial and temporal patterns of the tracer signature in the main stream, its selected tributaries, shallow groundwater, snowmelt and glacier melt over a 3-year period. We found that stream water electrical conductivity and isotopic composition showed consistent patterns in snowmelt-dominated periods, whereas the streamflow contribution of glacier melt altered the correlations between the two tracers. By applying two-and three-component mixing models, we quantified the seasonally variable proportion of groundwater, snowmelt and glacier melt at different locations along the stream. We provided four model scenarios based on different tracer signatures of the end-members; the highest contributions of snowmelt to streamflow occurred in late spring-early summer and ranged between 70 and 79 %, according to different scenarios, whereas the largest inputs by glacier melt were observed in mid-summer, and ranged between 57 and 69 %. In addition to the identification of the main sources of uncertainty, we demonstrated how a careful sampling design is critical in order to avoid underestimation of the meltwater component in streamflow. The results of this study supported the development of a conceptual model of streamflow response to meltwater dynamics in the Saldur catchment, which is likely valid for other glacierized catchments worldwide.

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Section: Role Of Snowmelt and Glacier Melt On Streamflowsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Scenarios Of Mixing Model Applicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a tracer-based conceptualization of meltwater dynamics and streamflow response in a glacierized catchment

Penna

Engel

Bertoldi

et al. 2017

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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show abstract

“…These became progressively lower with a minimum at 15:30 (CET) in the afternoon when the melt rate was highest. Jeelani et al () found higher EC values in meltwater originating from a debris‐covered glacier compared with a clean glacier. Because glacier melt tracer signatures depend on the water origin (e.g., supraglacial meltwater vs. glacier outflow), the origin of the air masses that form precipitation and the post‐depositional processes, a direct comparison is solely valuable for catchments with similar climate conditions and physical characteristics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Spatio‐temporal tracer variability in the glacier melt end‐member — How does it affect hydrograph separation results?

Schmieder

Garvelmann

Marke

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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Geochemical and isotopic tracers were often used in mixing models to estimate glacier melt contributions to streamflow, whereas the spatio‐temporal variability in the glacier melt tracer signature and its influence on tracer‐based hydrograph separation results received less attention. We present novel tracer data from a high‐elevation catchment (17 km2, glacierized area: 34%) in the Oetztal Alps (Austria) and investigated the spatial, as well as the subdaily to monthly tracer variability of supraglacial meltwater and the temporal tracer variability of winter baseflow to infer groundwater dynamics. The streamflow tracer variability during winter baseflow conditions was small, and the glacier melt tracer variation was higher, especially at the end of the ablation period. We applied a three‐component mixing model with electrical conductivity and oxygen‐18. Hydrograph separation (groundwater, glacier melt, and rain) was performed for 6 single glacier melt‐induced days (i.e., 6 events) during the ablation period 2016 (July to September). Median fractions (±uncertainty) of groundwater, glacier melt, and rain for the events were estimated at 49±2%, 35±11%, and 16±11%, respectively. Minimum and maximum glacier melt fractions at the subdaily scale ranged between 2±5% and 76±11%, respectively. A sensitivity analysis showed that the intraseasonal glacier melt tracer variability had a marked effect on the estimated glacier melt contribution during events with large glacier melt fractions of streamflow. Intra‐daily and spatial variation of the glacier melt tracer signature played a negligible role in applying the mixing model. The results of this study (a) show the necessity to apply a multiple sampling approach in order to characterize the glacier melt end‐member and (b) reveal the importance of groundwater and rainfall–runoff dynamics in catchments with a glacial flow regime.

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“…A novel approach for obtaining snowmelt water samples for isotope analysis was presented including the strengths and weaknesses of proposed PCS method in comparison to other techniques. In each participating country, the PCSs were deployed according to its own specific research questions and requirements (Jeelani et al, 2016;Krajči et al, 2016;Massone et al, 2016;N'da et al, 2016;Penna et al, 2014Penna et al, , 2017.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of Passive Capillary Samplers in Water Stable Isotope Investigations of Snowmelt – A Case Study From Slovenia

Vreča

Brenčič

Torkar

2018

Journal of Hydrology and Hydromechanics

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In this paper we describe the use of modified passive capillary samplers (PCSs) to investigate the water isotope variability of snowmelt at selected sites in Slovenia during winter 2011/2012 and during winter 2012/2013. First, PCS with 3 fibreglass wicks covering approximately 1 m 2 were tested to determine sample variability. We observed high variability in the amount of snowmelt water collected by individual wick (185 to 345 g) and in the isotope composition of oxygen (δ 18 O −10.43‰ to −9.02‰) and hydrogen (δ 2 H −70.5‰ to −63.6‰) of the collected water. Following the initial tests, a more detailed investigation was performed in winter 2012/2013 and the variability of snowmelt on the local scale among the different levels (i.e. within group, between the close and more distant groups of wicks) was investigated by applying 30 fibreglass wicks making use of Analysis Of Variance (ANOVA) and a balanced hierarchical sampling design. The amount of snowmelt water collected by an individual wick during the whole experiment was between 116 and 1705 g, while the isotope composition varied from −16.32‰ to −12.86‰ for δ 18 O and from −120.2‰ to −82.5‰ for δ 2 H. The main source of variance (80%) stems from the variability within the group of wicks (e.g. within group) while other sources contribute less than 20% of the variability. Amount weighted samples for the 2012-2013 season show no significant differences among groups, but significant differences for particular sampling events were observed. These investigations show that due to the variability within the group of wicks, a large number of wicks (> 5) are needed to sample snowmelt.

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Estimation of snow and glacier melt contribution to Liddar stream in a mountainous catchment, western Himalaya: an isotopic approach

Cited by 56 publications

References 28 publications

Towards a tracer-based conceptualization of meltwater dynamics and streamflow response in a glacierized catchment

Towards a tracer-based conceptualization of meltwater dynamics and streamflow response in a glacierized catchment

Spatio‐temporal tracer variability in the glacier melt end‐member — How does it affect hydrograph separation results?

Application of Passive Capillary Samplers in Water Stable Isotope Investigations of Snowmelt – A Case Study From Slovenia

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