Groundwater‐Mediated Memory of Past Climate Controls Water Yield in Snowmelt‐Dominated Catchments

Abstract

Snowmelt-driven streamflow in the mountain watersheds of western North America is the primary water source for urban, agricultural, natural ecosystems, and hydropower generation throughout the region. The

The shrinking Great Salt Lake contributes to record high dust-on-snow deposition in the Wasatch Mountains during the 2022 snowmelt season

“…Water yield in the region correlates to the peak annual snow water equivalent (SWE) of the mountain snowpack (e.g. Brooks et al 2021), and infrastructure has been designed around capturing seasonal runoff in man-made reservoirs for distribution to downstream water users throughout the year (Sturm et al 2017). For Salt Lake City, 50%-60% of the municipal water supply comes from four streams that drain out of the Central Wasatch, but there is relatively low reservoir capacity (0.026 km 3 ; Bardsley et al 2013), rendering controls on snowmelt timing and magnitude critical.…”

Multi‐Year Controls on Groundwater Storage in Seasonally Snow‐Covered Headwater Catchments

“…We assume here that these mid‐winter (January) steady flows are an index of antecedent catchment groundwater storage. A broad range of studies infer groundwater storage from baseflow (Brooks et al., 2021; Cooper et al., 2018; Miller et al., 2014; Rumsey et al., 2020; Safeeq et al., 2014) and here we are using baseflow to infer the relative change from year to year in groundwater storage. To address the few instances where January rains occur or episodic melt occurs, each year was screened and in the event of high daily variability (SD > 0.03 from mean), that year's value was removed.…”

“…Recent work indicates that interannual variability in snowmelt dynamics interacts with multi‐year cycles of antecedent groundwater storage to control annual runoff efficiency (Brooks et al., 2021). Statistical models incorporating these interactions reduce uncertainty in streamflow prediction to less than 5% (Brooks et al., 2021).…”

“…Recent work indicates that interannual variability in snowmelt dynamics interacts with multi‐year cycles of antecedent groundwater storage to control annual runoff efficiency (Brooks et al., 2021). Statistical models incorporating these interactions reduce uncertainty in streamflow prediction to less than 5% (Brooks et al., 2021). Although most models of hydrologic partitioning in headwater catchments assume minimal carryover of storage from year to year, an increasing body of literature indicates that the volume of water stored in headwater catchments may be large (Arnoux et al., 2020; Carroll et al., 2019; Frisbee et al., 2011; McNamara et al., 2011).…”

探索低地冰后期环境中地下水干旱响应

“…Spatial differences in drought duration and development, regardless of the spatial extent of meteorological drought, also exist in other parts of the hydrological cycle due to groundwater influence-for example, variable baseflow influences spatial differences in drought development in streams Brooks et al 2021), and drought development in soil moisture is affected by variable thickness of the capillary fringe and water-table depth (Han et al 2019; Martínez-de la Torre and Miguez-Macho 2019). However, groundwater can also mitigate drought impacts in other parts of the hydrological cycle.…”