Real-time monitoring of nutrients and dissolved organic matter in rivers: Capturing event dynamics, technological opportunities and future directions

Abstract

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High‐frequency monitoring of catchment nutrient exports reveals highly variable storm event responses and dynamic source zone activation

“…Therefore, storm events represented important components of the annual hydrograph for mobilization and export of NO 3 -N and DOC from the catchment; thus, supporting our first hypothesis that storm events would contribute disproportionately to nutrient export relative to their duration [Basu et al, 2010;Raymond et al, 2012;Mellander et al, 2012]. The insights provided by these high-resolution data sets underscore the value of automated in situ sensors to capture both interevent and intraevent variabilities in storm event dynamics relative to conventional sampling methods using manual grab samples or autosamplers of limited capacity [Blaen et al, 2016;Bowes et al, 2009].…”

“…Our study contributes to this important field of research by developing new mechanistic process understanding from examining interactions between hydroclimatological drivers, streamflow, and nitrogen, and carbon concentrations at high temporal resolution. The use of high-frequency in situ sensors to capture short-term streamflow and solute concentration dynamics through storm events facilitated insights into the processes controlling highly dynamic catchment exports that would be impossible to achieve using discrete sampling methods [Rode et al, 2016b;Blaen et al, 2016]. Our modeling results highlighted the importance of key hydroclimatological variables, notably rainfall intensity and antecedent conditions, which drive the mobilization and transport of nitrogen and carbon through stream catchments.…”

“…If combined with additional analyses of water age distributions [e.g., Morgenstern et al, 2015], particularly at fine temporal resolutions using field analysers [von Freyberg et al, 2017], such work will further our ability to assess the relative importance of different nutrient source zones and flow pathways within catchments. Recent advances in sensing technology, coupled with decreasing costs [Blaen et al, 2016], mean that high-frequency nutrient measurements from in situ sensors are likely to play an increasingly important role in developing techniques for the effective management of catchment water resources in future.…”

“…Recent developments in optical sensor technology are now enabling in situ, continuous measurements of riverine nutrient dynamics at subhourly temporal resolutions [Blaen et al, 2016]. Such high-resolution data have the potential to adequately monitor the real dynamic behavior of catchment nutrient exports and, thus, improve estimates of nutrient loads and facilitate detailed new insights into the patterns, drivers, and organizational principles of catchment nutrient fluxes.…”

Exploring Tracer Information and Model Framework Trade‐Offs to Improve Estimation of Stream Transient Storage Processes

“…The last decade has seen an explosion of novel techniques for collecting data used to characterize dynamic hydrologic systems. Tools and techniques that fall under this umbrella include the burgeoning field of hydrogeophysics (e.g., St Clair et al, ; Ward et al, ), the use of unoccupied aerial vehicles (e.g., Brenner et al, ; Vivoni et al, ), high space‐time resolution sensing systems (e.g., Blaen et al, ; Khamis et al, ), and the growing use of smart and conservative tracers in the environment (e.g., Blaen et al, ; González‐Pinzón et al, ; Haggerty et al, ; Knapp et al, ; Runkel, ). Observational data obtained from these techniques have been used to reveal new process dynamics and to refine current understanding of hydrological systems.…”