The focus of this study is the hydrochemical variability of
runoff events in two nested alpine/sub-alpine basins. More
specifically, the aim is to link hydrograph interpretations to
results of hydrochemistry during rain storms in order to
understand better short term hydrochemical fluxes and
variability in solute sources.
Hydrograph separation was undertaken by using four hydrological tracers; electrical conductivity, concentration of silica, and
the stable environmental isotopes oxygen-18 and deuterium. The
different methods predicted consistent high pre-storm water
contribution for the lower station at peak flow (60%-90%) but
less consistent results were found at the upper basin outlet (25%-90%).
The chemical characteristics of the stream water have been
analyzed using three different approaches, namely; statistical,
mass balance, and thermodynamic. Linear correlation was used to
investigate the statistical association between discharge and
the individual chemical species. The mass balance approach was
used to correlate stoichiometry of the bedrock mineralogy to
dissolved constituents in the stream water. Finally, a
thermodynamic technique was used to evaluate to what extent the
stream water could be represented as an equilibrium system and how this changed over the course of the storm. The results from
these methods showed that the stream water variability was
caused almost entirely by dilution from rain water input.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/3912 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Laudon, Hjalmar |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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