Hydrometric, Hydrochemical, and Hydrogeophysical Runoff Characterization Across Multiple Land Covers in the Agua Salud Project, Panama
Abstract
As the Panama Canal Authority faces sensitivity to water shortages, managing water resources becomes crucial for the global shipping industry's security. These studies address knowledge gaps in tropical water resources to aid hydrological model development and validation. Field-based hydrological investigations in the Agua Salud Project within the Panama Canal Watershed employed multiple tools across a variety of land covers to investigate hydrological processes. Geochemical tracers informed where storm runoff in a stream comes from and identified electrical conductivity (EC) as an economical, high sample frequency tracer during small storms. EC-based hydrograph separation coupled with hydrograph recession rate analyses identified shallow and deep groundwater storage-discharge relationships that varied by season and land cover. A series of plot-scale electrical resistivity imaging geophysical experiments coupled with rainfall simulation characterized subsurface flow pathway behavior and quantified respectively increasing infiltration rates across pasture, 10 year old secondary succession forest, teak (tectona grandis), and 30 year old secondary succession forest land covers. Additional soil water, groundwater, and geochemical studies informed conceptual model development in subsurface flow pathways and groundwater, and identified future research needs.
- Publication:
-
Ph.D. Thesis
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- DOI:
- 10.13140/RG.2.2.17955.30240
- Bibcode:
- 2016PhDT.......195L
- Keywords:
-
- Hydrologic sciences;
- Geochemistry;
- Geophysics;
- land use change;
- stable isotopes;
- infiltration;
- tropics