The VeWa project will focus on 6 experimental high-latitude headwater sites: Bruntland Burn, Dorset, Dry Creek, Krycklan, Moss Creek, and Wolf Creek. This range of sites will allow us to look at how differences in vegetation type affect water storage, transmission and release.
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The Dry Creek (DC) watershed (28 km2) is located in Idaho, United States.
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![]() the upper parts. Precipitation is around 650 mm, of which 40% falls as snow. Annual mean runoff is around 311 mm. Krycklan shows strong seasonality with most water replenishment occurring in spring but also some in wet autumns. The catchment ranges in elevation from 234 to 306 m asl. The geology is dominated by meta-sediments; soils are mainly podzols. Coniferous forests predominate, although large Sphagnum-dominated wetlands cover up to 40% of some of the sub-catchments. |
The Harp Lake catchment (HP4, 1.2 km2) is located near Dorset (Dor) in Ontario, Canada.
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Moss Creek (9.3 km2) is a tributary within the Baker Creek Research Basin (155 km2) in Canada’s Northwest Territories. |
Overview catchment characteristics
Site | Size (km2) | Mean altitude (masl) | Mean annual T (ºC) | Dominant soils | Dominant geology |
Bruntland Burn UK, Scotland |
3.2 | 350 | 7 | Peaty Gleys; Peaty Podzols | Low permeability igneous + metamorphic rocks; In valley bottom areas: fine textured drifts |
Wolf Creek, Canada | 7.6 | 1650 | -3 | Organic soils overlying till; regosols at high elevation | Primarly sedimentary, till mantle with thickness from cm-10 m |
Dorset, Canada |
1.2 | 370 | 4.7 | Uplands: brunisols and podzols
Valley bottoms: histosols |
Granitized biotite and hornblende gneiss; surficial geology ranges from bedrock outcrops to sandy till > 10 m thick, with peat in wetlands |
Sweden |
0.5 | 250 | 2.4 | Podzols | Meta-sediments |
Dry Creek, US | 28 | 1470 | 9 | Argixerolls, Haploxerolls, and Haplocambids |
Biotite granodiorite
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Moss Creek, Canada | 9.3 | 230 | -4.3 | Podzols and organic cryosols |
Precambrian volcanic and sedimentary bedrock intruded by Archean batholiths and plutons |
References
Carey, SK., Tetzlaff, D., Seibert, J., Soulsby, C., Buttle, J., Laudon, H., McDonnell, J., McGuire, K., Caissie, D., Shanley, J., Kennedy, M., Devito, K. & Pomeroy, JW. (2010). 'Inter-comparison of hydro-climatic regimes across northern catchments: Synchronicity, resistance and resilience'. Hydrological Processes, 24, 24, 3591-3602. DOI:10.1002/hyp.7880
Bruntland Burn: Tetzlaff, D., Birkel, C., Dick, J., Geris, J. & Soulsby, C. (2014). 'Storage dynamics in hydropedological units control hillslope connectivity, runoff generation, and the evolution of catchment transit time distributions'. Water Resources Research, 50, 2, 969-985. DOI:10.1002/2013WR014147
Dorset: Buttle, J. M., & Eimers, M. C. (2009). Scaling and physiographic controls on streamflow behaviour on the Precambrian Shield, south-central Ontario. Journal of Hydrology, 374(3), 360-372. DOI:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.06.036
Dry Creek: McNamara, J. P., Chandler, D., Seyfried, M. & Achet, S. (2005), Soil moisture states, lateral flow, and streamflow generation in a semi-arid, snowmelt-driven catchment. Hydrological Processes, 19: 4023–4038. DOI: 10.1002/hyp.5869
Krycklan: Laudon, H., Taberman, I., Ågren, A., Futter, M., Ottosson-Löfvenius, M. & Bishop K. (2013), The Krycklan Catchment Study—A flagship infrastructure for hydrology, biogeochemistry, and climate research in the boreal landscape, Water Resources Research, 49, 7154-7158. DOI:10.1002/wrcr.20520
Wolf Creek: McCartney, S. E., Carey, S. K. & Pomeroy, J. W. (2006), Intra-basin variability of snowmelt water balance calculations in a subarctic catchment. Hydrological Processes, 20: 1001–1016. DOI: 10.1002/hyp.6125
Moss Creek: Spence, C., X.J. Guan, R. Phillips, N. Hedstrom, R. Granger and R. Reid, 2010. “Storage Dynamics and Streamflow in a Catchment with a Variable Contributing Area”, Hydrological Processes 24: 2209–2221. DOI: 10.1002/hyp.7492