Heat as a Tracer of Stream Exchanges with Ground Water

Vortragender: Dr. Jim Constantz, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California
Mo. 19.05.2008 (14:15), H 6

Recent improvements in both automated temperature-data acquisition and simulation modeling of heat and ground-water transport, are leading to widespread implementation of heat as a tracer of ground-water fluxes near streams. The presentation provides a brief historical review of the use of heat as a tracer of shallow ground-water movement, and details current theory used to estimate stream exchanges with ground water. The governing equations for heat and ground-water transport in the near-stream environment are presented. The various relations between the hydrologic state of a stream channel and the expected thermal response is graphical depicted. Techniques for installation and monitoring of temperature and stage equipment are discussed for a range of hydrological environments. These techniques are divided into direct measurement techniques in streams and sediments, indirect techniques relying on near-stream observation wells, and remote sensing and other technically advanced temperature acquisition techniques.
As a result presumably of a natural sense of heat, temperature is graphical visualized more often and diversely than other environmental parameters. Visualizations of stream and streambed temperature patterns are discussed using thermographs, temperature envelopes, and 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional temperature contour plots.
Methods of analysis of observed temperatures include simple heat-pulse arrival-time and heat-loss procedures, analytical and time-series solutions, and heat and water transport simulation models. Applications of heat as tracer are presented for a variety of stream sites, ranging from a large bank filtration facility on the Russian River in northern California to ephemeral arroyos (wadis) in the desert Southwest bordering Mexico.

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