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Abstract Non-perennial rivers and streams make up over half the global river network and are becoming more widespread. Transitions from perennial to non-perennial flow are a threshold-type change that can lead to alternative stable states in aquatic ecosystems, but it is unknown whether streamflow itself is stable in either wet (flowing) or dry (no-flow) conditions. Here, we investigated drivers and feedbacks associated with regime shifts between wet and dry conditions in an intermittent reach of the Arkansas River (USA) over the past 23 years. Multiple lines of evidence suggested that these regimes represent alternative stable states, including (a) significant jumps in discharge time series that were not accompanied by jumps in flow drivers such as precipitation and groundwater pumping; (b) a multi-modal state distribution with 92% of months experiencing no-flow conditions for <10% or >90% of days, despite unimodal distributions of precipitation and pumping; and (c) a hysteretic relationship between climate and flow state. Groundwater levels appear to be the primary control over the hydrological regime, as groundwater levels in the alluvial aquifer were higher than the stream stage during wet regimes and lower than the streambed during dry regimes. Groundwater level variation, in turn, was driven by processes occurring at both the regional scale (surface water inflows from upstream, groundwater pumping) and the reach scale (stream–aquifer exchange, diffuse recharge through the soil column). Historical regime shifts were associated with diverse pressures including network disconnection caused by upstream water use, increased flow stability potentially associated with reservoir operations, and anomalous wet and dry climate conditions. In sum, stabilizing feedbacks among upstream inflows, stream–aquifer interactions, climate, vegetation, and pumping appear to create alternative wet and dry stable states at this site. These stabilizing feedbacks suggest that widespread observed shifts from perennial to non-perennial flow will be difficult to reverse.
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Nonlinear Riparian Interactions Drive Changes in Headwater Streamflow
As drought and wildfire frequency increase across the western United States, our ability to predict how water resources will respond to these disturbances depends on our understanding of the feedbacks that maintain watershed function and streamflow. Previous studies of non‐perennial headwater streams have ranked drivers of low‐flow conditions; however, there is a limited understanding of the interactions between these drivers and the processes through which these interactions affect streamflow. Here, we use stream water level, soil moisture, sap flow, and vapor pressure deficit data to investigate ecohydrological interactions along a mountainous headwater stream. Correlation and cross‐correlation analyses of these variables show that ecohydrological interactions are (a) nonlinear and (b) interconnected, suggesting that analyses assuming linearity and independence of each driver are inadequate for quantifying these interactions. To account for these issues and investigate causal linkages, we use convergent cross‐mapping (CCM) to characterize the feedbacks that influence non‐perennial streamflow. CCM is a nonlinear, dynamic method that has only recently been applied to hydrologic systems. CCM results reveal that atmospheric losses associated with local sap flow and vapor pressure deficit are driving changes in soil moisture and streamflow (p < 0.01) and that atmospheric losses influence stream water more directly than shallow soil moisture. These results also demonstrate that riparian processes continue to affect subsurface flows in the channel corridor even after stream drying. This study proposes a nonlinear framework for quantifying the ecohydrologic interactions that may determine how headwater streams respond to disturbance.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1653998
- PAR ID:
- 10527366
- Publisher / Repository:
- American Geophysical Union
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Water Resources Research
- Volume:
- 59
- Issue:
- 10
- ISSN:
- 0043-1397
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2023WR034870
