Monitoring Non-Uniform Infiltration of Snow Melt Using Time-Lapse Electrical Resistivity Tomography
Abstract
Snowmelt dominates the hydrology of the mountain western region of the United States where 75% of precipitation falls on only 15% of the land area. This study aims to elucidate a fundamental question of how water moves from the snowpack into the vadose zone, specifically in a zero-order catchment located in the Big Horn Mountains, Wyoming, USA. Here we have several hydrologic instruments, such as soil moisture probes, a meteorological station, and a time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) line. These instruments take a large number of repeating measurements to gain understanding of water movement through time. We hypothesize that with greater initial moisture conditions, as pore networks become wetter and more connected, we expect to find a higher likelihood of unsaturated heterogeneous vertical flow. We focus on the soil water content dynamics during snowmelt where the large change in bulk subsurface physical properties due to infiltration provides an excellent geophysical target. During wetter initial soil moisture conditions, where higher initial moisture content was measured, more non-uniform flow was also measured. These findings suggest that the localized zones of non-uniform flow may give rise to more rapid, deeper infiltration and less available water in the unsaturated zone.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMNS34A..06M
- Keywords:
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- 0933 Remote sensing;
- EXPLORATION GEOPHYSICSDE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1835 Hydrogeophysics;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1880 Water management;
- HYDROLOGY