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Wetlandscapes: Gatekeepers of nutrient-based water quality across multi-scale watersheds
Citation:
Golden, H., C. Lane, J. Christensen, AND A. Rajib. Wetlandscapes: Gatekeepers of nutrient-based water quality across multi-scale watersheds. 2020 Society of Wetland Scientists Virtual Meeting, Virtual, December 01 - 03, 2020.
Impact/Purpose:
We present a suite of axioms deducing how wetlands across the landscape cumulatively influence water residence times and streamflow. We further detail new evidence supporting potential mechanisms controlling how wetlands mediate downgradient water quality conditions. We conduct our analyses using process-based and statistical modeling across large watersheds, integrated with remotely sensed big data, to interpret which properties of wetlandscapes -and how their interactions with climate variability -contribute to their gatekeeper functionality. Moreover, we applied in our statistical models a newly developed set of “wetland flowpath variables” that represent structural and functional characteristics of hydrological flowpaths from wetlands to streams. Our findings suggest that small wetlands affect the cumulative amount of time surface water is stored across watersheds and that larger wetlands regulate the timing and magnitude of streamflow. We also found that structural characteristics of overland flowpaths (e.g., slopes, Manning's coefficients) from wetlands to streams mediate total nitrogen and total phosphorus concentrations across the study watersheds. Our work underscores the importance of considering wetlands and their hydrological flowpaths when managing streamflow and nutrients across multi-sale watersheds -in addition to the importance of directly integrating wetlands into process-based and statistical models.
Description:
An emergent property of wetlandscapes (landscapes with an abundant distribution of wetlands) is their capacity to influence the quantity and quality of downgradient surface waters (e.g., streams, rivers). However, the mechanisms controlling this gatekeeper property of wetlandscapes are just beginning to materialize in the literature. We present a suite of axioms deducing how wetlands across the landscape cumulatively influence water residence times and streamflow. We further detail new evidence supporting potential mechanisms controlling how wetlands mediate downgradient water quality conditions. We conduct our analyses using process-based and statistical modeling across large watersheds, integrated with remotely sensed big data, to interpret which properties of wetlandscapes -and how their interactions with climate variability -contribute to their gatekeeper functionality. Moreover, we applied in our statistical models a newly developed set of “wetland flowpath variables” that represent structural and functional characteristics of hydrological flowpaths from wetlands to streams. Our findings suggest that small wetlands affect the cumulative amount of time surface water is stored across watersheds and that larger wetlands regulate the timing and magnitude of streamflow. We also found that structural characteristics of overland flowpaths (e.g., slopes, Manning's coefficients) from wetlands to streams mediate total nitrogen and total phosphorus concentrations across the study watersheds. Our work underscores the importance of considering wetlands and their hydrological flowpaths when managing streamflow and nutrients across multi-sale watersheds -in addition to the importance of directly integrating wetlands into process-based and statistical models.