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Anticipating how stream water quality will respond to change, such as increased pollution or water diversions, requires knowledge of the main mechanisms controlling water and chemical constituent movement and a reasonable representation of those mechanisms. By deriving mathematical models to represent a stream system and collecting supporting field-based measurements, water quality response can be predicted. However, because each stream is unique and the movement of water and constituents is spatially and temporally complex, assessing whether the stream is appropriately represented and whether predictions are trustworthy is still a challenge within the scientific and management communities. Building on decades of stream research, this dissertation provides a step towards better representing some of the complexities found within streams and rivers to better predict water quality responses over long stream distances. First, a method is presented to assess which mechanisms are considered most important in chemical constituent predictions. Next, the number of measurements necessary to represent the general complexities of water, mass, and heat movement in streams was determined. The advancements developed in this dissertation provide a foundation to more efficiently and accurately inform water resource management.

I studied nine streams near Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming, covering a land use gradient (urban, agricultural, and forested) to assess influences of land use on denitrification rates and hyporheic exchange. I hypothesized denitrification in the hyporheic zone is governed by availability of chemical substrates and hydrologic transport. I tested this hypothesis by coupling measurements of denitrification potentials in hyporheic sediments with a 2-storage zone solute transport model. Denitrification potentials were lowest on average in hyporheic sediments from forested streams and highest from agricultural streams. Modeling results suggest, on average, agricultural sites are transport-limited by having the slowest exchange rate with hyporheic zone and longest transport before entering storage. Land use influences the capacity for hyporheic denitrification in two ways 1) agricultural and urban practices supply substrates that build the microbial potential for denitrification and 2) agricultural and urban activities alter channel form and substrates, limiting hyporheic exchange.

<p>The interplay between hydraulic and chemical processes in streams and adjacent storage zones, e.g. streambed sediments, is of crucial importance for the large-scale transport of released contaminants. This thesis presents a methodology for tracer experiments and the development of mechanistic transport models. </p><p>We conducted four field tracer experiments with the reactive tracer chromium, ⁵¹Cr(III) and/or the conservative tracers potassium iodide (KI) and tritium (³H₂O), along 11 km of the Lanna Stream in Skara County, Sweden, and along a 30 km reach of the Säva Stream in Uppland County, Sweden. The field monitoring included sampling of tracer in the surface water as well as in the streambed sediments. A simultaneous injection of tritium and chromium facilitated an independent evaluation of the hydraulic transport into and out of the sub-surface storage zones. The difference in transport behaviour between the two tracers, were attributed to chemical reactivity.</p><p>In terms of idealised transport models we found that the reactivity of chromium could be characterised by simple chemical concepts. The local equilibrium assumption (LEA), the irreversible kinetics assumption (IKA) and the reversible kinetics assumption (RKA) were applied in the experimental evaluations. An independent evaluation of the streambed transport revealed that the impact of reaction kinetics was substantial. Model calculations and results from a chemical extraction procedure indicated that the chemical reactions affecting the chromium transport were to some extent irreversible.</p><p>This thesis presents a number of exact analytical solutions to the governing partial differential equations. The main theoretical contribution is the incorporation of variable coefficients for stream discharge and sediment porosity, which were measured in field.</p>

The interplay between hydraulic and chemical processes in streams and adjacent storage zones, e.g. streambed sediments, is of crucial importance for the large-scale transport of released contaminants. This thesis presents a methodology for tracer experiments and the development of mechanistic transport models. We conducted four field tracer experiments with the reactive tracer chromium, 51Cr(III) and/or the conservative tracers potassium iodide (KI) and tritium (3H2O), along 11 km of the Lanna Stream in Skara County, Sweden, and along a 30 km reach of the Säva Stream in Uppland County, Sweden. The field monitoring included sampling of tracer in the surface water as well as in the streambed sediments. A simultaneous injection of tritium and chromium facilitated an independent evaluation of the hydraulic transport into and out of the sub-surface storage zones. The difference in transport behaviour between the two tracers, were attributed to chemical reactivity. In terms of idealised transport models we found that the reactivity of chromium could be characterised by simple chemical concepts. The local equilibrium assumption (LEA), the irreversible kinetics assumption (IKA) and the reversible kinetics assumption (RKA) were applied in the experimental evaluations. An independent evaluation of the streambed transport revealed that the impact of reaction kinetics was substantial. Model calculations and results from a chemical extraction procedure indicated that the chemical reactions affecting the chromium transport were to some extent irreversible. This thesis presents a number of exact analytical solutions to the governing partial differential equations. The main theoretical contribution is the incorporation of variable coefficients for stream discharge and sediment porosity, which were measured in field.

The intra-continental movement of waterborne contaminants is governed by the distribution of solute load in the landscape along with the characteristics and distribution of the hydrological pathways that transport the solutes. An understanding of the processes affecting the transport and fate of the contaminants is crucial for assessments of solute concentrations and their environmental effect on downstream recipients. Elevated concentration of nutrients and the presence of anthropogenic substances, such as pharmaceutical residues, are two examples of the current problems related to hydrological transport. The overall objective of this thesis is to increase the mechanistic understanding of the governing hydrological transport processes and their links to geomorphological and biogeochemical retention and attenuation processes. Specifically, this study aims to quantify the processes governing the transport and fate of waterborne contaminants on the point, stream reach, and watershed scales by evaluating time series obtained from stream tracer tests and water quality monitoring data. The process quantification was achieved by deriving formal expressions for the key transport characteristics, such as the central temporal moments of a unit solute response function and the spectral scaling function for time series of solute responses, which attributes the solute response in the Laplace and Fourier domains to the governing processes and spatial regions within the watershed. The results demonstrate that in addition to the hydrological and biogeochemical processes, the distribution of the load in the landscape and the geomorphological properties in terms of the distribution of transport pathway distances have defined effects on the solute response. Furthermore, the spatial variability between and along the transport pathways significantly affect the solute response. The results indicate that environments with high retention and attenuation intensity, such as stream-reaches with pronounced hyporheic zones, may often dominate the solute flux in the watershed effluent, especially for reactive solutes. The mechanistic-based framework along with the evaluation methodologies presented within this study describes how the results can be generalized in terms of model parameters that reflect the hydrology, geomorphology and biogeochemistry in the studied area. This procedure is demonstrated by the parameterization of a compartment-in-series model for phosphorous transport. / <p>QC 20140826</p>

Agricultural land use near streams frequently results in long-term disturbance to woody riparian vegetation and an alteration of reach scale geomorphic structure. Such disturbances often result in increased fine sediment input to the stream along with direct changes in channel structure. The study described here was designed to quantify stream geomorphic changes associated with agriculture and their influence on reach scale transient storage hydraulics and sediment biological function. Six small streams in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina were selected to compare 3 reaches with active near-stream agriculture to 3 forested reference reaches. The study site categories differed significantly in many structural and hydraulic properties including slope, sinuosity, sediment size, and transient storage extent. However, differences cannot be attributed to land use alone. Distinct disparity in slope suggests that many of the categorical differences between stream types may also reflect valley scale structure. Despite these larger scale controls, the abundance of suspendable fines varied substantially among agricultural stream substrates, possibly due to varied land-use practices. Suspendable fine sediments and valley slope explained 91 % of variability in transient storage exchange, and abundance of inorganic fine sediments explained 77 % of variability in sediment microcosm nitrate production. This study supports conclusions that reach-scale influence of fine sediments occurred within the context of larger-scale valley structure, with implications on stream hydraulics and biogeochemistry. / Master of Science

I released chloride and corn pollen into artificial streams to study the effects of discharge, substrate size, leaf packs, and pools on the retention and transport of fine particulate organic matter (FPOM). I found that doubling discharge significantly decreased both hydraulic and FPOM retention (measured as pollen uptake length). However, quadrupling discharge returned both hydraulic and FPOM retention to original or higher values. There was a strong positive relationship between FPOM depositional velocity and discharge (r² = 0.846, p < 0.0001), and between FPOM depositional velocity and turbulence (r² = 0.831, p < 0.0001). Depositional velocity for all experiments was considerably less than predicted by the “fall-velocity model”. Substrate size controlled hydraulic retention through the size of interstitial spaces in the bed and FPOM retention through substrate-created turbulence. Small gravel substrate had the largest transient storage zone relative to stream cross-sectional area. Large gravel substrate had the highest depositional velocity of pollen and the most turbulence. Cobble had the least hydraulic and FPOM retention. Adding leaf packs significantly decreased hydraulic and FPOM retention. However, the number of leaf packs made little difference. Adding pools significantly increased hydraulic retention and FROM depositional velocity. / Master of Science

The pollution of streams and rivers is a growing concern, and environmental guidance increasingly suggests stream restoration to improve water quality. �Solute retention in off channel storage zones such as hyporheic zones and floodplains is typically necessary for significant reaction to occur. �Yet the effects of two common restoration techniques, in stream structures and inset floodplains, on solute retention have not been rigorously compared. �We used MIKE SHE to model hydraulics and solute transport in the channel, inset floodplain, and hyporheic zone of a 2nd order stream. �We varied hydraulic conditions (winter baseflow, summer baseflow, and storm flow), geology (hydraulic conductivity), and stream restoration design parameters (inset floodplain length, and presence of in stream structures). �In stream structures induced hyporheic exchange during summer baseflow with a low groundwater table (~20% of the year), while floodplains only retained solutes during storm flow conditions (~1% of the year). �Flow through the hyporheic zone increased linearly with hydraulic conductivity, while residence times decreased linearly. �Flow through inset floodplains and residence times in both the channel and floodplains increased non linearly with the fraction of bank with floodplains installed. �The fraction of stream flow that entered inset floodplains was one to three orders of magnitude higher than that through the hyporheic zone, while the residence time and mass storage in the hyporheic zone was one to five orders of magnitude larger than that in floodplain segments. �Our model results suggest that in stream structures and inset floodplains are complementary practices. / Master of Science

Surface transient storage (STS) in stream ecosystems serve an important function in retaining nutrients and refugia for aquatic communities. Unfortunately, they can retain contaminants as well. Therefore, it is of importance to determine the residence time distribution (RTD). A RTD of a particular STS zone encompasses the time it takes for the first pulse of water to leave the STS zone, and for the mean residence time of water in that zone, among other things. The RTD of STS is also useful to subtract from the RTD of the total transient storage in streams in order to determine the hyporheic transient storage (HTS) of streams, which is difficult to measure. Currently, there is no definitive method of determining the RTD of STS. They have been determined with tracer injection alone, though this is time consuming and subject to interference from HTS. A relationship between STS physical characteristics and a RTD would be desirable, as this would characterize the time of entrainment of STS based upon a few easily measured physical parameters. This exists for groyne fields and flumes, which both have artificial STS. However, direct application of these equations to natural STS leads to errors due to simplistic geometries. The focus of this study determines RTDs in lateral STS, which is adjacent to the main channel of a stream and a significant proportion of STS, and its relationship to physically measurable parameters of lateral STS. Twenty sites throughout Oregon were each injected with NaCl to determine four residence timescales: Langmuir time (��[subscript L]), negative inverse slope of the normalized concentration curve of the primary gyre (��[subscript 1]), negative inverse slope of the normalized concentration curve of the entire STS zone (��[subscript 2]), and the mean residence time (��[subscript STS]). The RTDs of these sites were then compared to the length, width, and depth of each lateral STS zone, as well as the velocity of the adjacent main channel. This data also was used to calculate dimensionless parameters submergence, a measure of bed roughness, and k, a measure of exchange that relates ��STS to lateral STS and associated parameters. ��[subscript 1] was found to be identical to ��[subscript STS], and ��[subscript 2] could not be defined. ��[subscript STS] was found to be approximately 1.35 times ��[subscript L], the ratio of which (��[subscript L]/��[subscript STS]) is positively correlated with lateral STS submergence. ��[subscript L] and ��[subscript STS] are positively correlated with lateral STS parameters, and inversely correlated with main channel velocity. The value of k from this study was comparable to the value of k from other studies in flumes, and so there is a relationship between RTDs and lateral STS parameters. / Graduation date: 2013