Articles | Volume 19, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-1153-2015
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-19-1153-2015
Research article
 | 
02 Mar 2015
Research article |  | 02 Mar 2015

Sampling frequency trade-offs in the assessment of mean transit times of tropical montane catchment waters under semi-steady-state conditions

E. Timbe, D. Windhorst, R. Celleri, L. Timbe, P. Crespo, H.-G. Frede, J. Feyen, and L. Breuer

Related authors

Assessment of hydrological pathways in East African montane catchments under different land use
Suzanne R. Jacobs, Edison Timbe, Björn Weeser, Mariana C. Rufino, Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, and Lutz Breuer
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 22, 4981–5000, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4981-2018,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-4981-2018, 2018
Short summary
Stable water isotope tracing through hydrological models for disentangling runoff generation processes at the hillslope scale
D. Windhorst, P. Kraft, E. Timbe, H.-G. Frede, and L. Breuer
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 4113–4127, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-4113-2014,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-4113-2014, 2014
Understanding uncertainties when inferring mean transit times of water trough tracer-based lumped-parameter models in Andean tropical montane cloud forest catchments
E. Timbe, D. Windhorst, P. Crespo, H.-G. Frede, J. Feyen, and L. Breuer
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 18, 1503–1523, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1503-2014,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-18-1503-2014, 2014

Related subject area

Subject: Catchment hydrology | Techniques and Approaches: Modelling approaches
Heavy-tailed flood peak distributions: what is the effect of the spatial variability of rainfall and runoff generation?
Elena Macdonald, Bruno Merz, Viet Dung Nguyen, and Sergiy Vorogushyn
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 447–463, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-447-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-447-2025, 2025
Short summary
State updating of the Xin'anjiang model: joint assimilating streamflow and multi-source soil moisture data via the asynchronous ensemble Kalman filter with enhanced error models
Junfu Gong, Xingwen Liu, Cheng Yao, Zhijia Li, Albrecht H. Weerts, Qiaoling Li, Satish Bastola, Yingchun Huang, and Junzeng Xu
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 335–360, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-335-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-335-2025, 2025
Short summary
Improving the hydrological consistency of a process-based solute-transport model by simultaneous calibration of streamflow and stream concentrations
Jordy Salmon-Monviola, Ophélie Fovet, and Markus Hrachowitz
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 127–158, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-127-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-127-2025, 2025
Short summary
Leveraging a time-series event separation method to disentangle time-varying hydrologic controls on streamflow – application to wildfire-affected catchments
Haley A. Canham, Belize Lane, Colin B. Phillips, and Brendan P. Murphy
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 27–43, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-27-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-27-2025, 2025
Short summary
The significance of the leaf area index for evapotranspiration estimation in SWAT-T for characteristic land cover types of West Africa
Fabian Merk, Timo Schaffhauser, Faizan Anwar, Ye Tuo, Jean-Martial Cohard, and Markus Disse
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 5511–5539, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-5511-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-5511-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Amin, I. E. and Campana, M. E.: A general lumped parameter model for the interpretation of tracer data and transit time calculation in hydrologic systems, J. Hydrol., 179, 1–21, https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1694(95)02880-3, 1996.
Barnes, C. J. and Bonell, M.: Application of unit hydrograph techniques to solute transport in catchments, Hydrol. Process., 10, 793–802, https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1085(199606)10:6<793::AID-HYP372>3.3.CO;2-B, 1996.
Beck, E., Kottke, I., Bendix, J., Makeschin, F., and Mosandl, R.: Gradients in a tropical mountain ecosystem – a synthesis, in: Gradients in a Tropical Mountain Ecosystem of Ecuador, vol. 198, edited by: Beck, E., Bendix, J., Kottke, I., Makeschin, F., and Mosandl, R., Springer, Berlin, 451–463, 2008.
Bendix, J., Rollenbeck, R., Fabian, P., Emck, P., Richter, M., and Beck, E.: Climate variability, in: Gradients in a Tropical Mountain Ecosystem of Ecuador, edited by: Beck, E., Bendix, J., Kottke, I., Makeschin, F., and Mosandl, R., Springer, Berlin, 281–290, 2008.
Beven, K. and Freer, J.: Equifinality, data assimilation, and uncertainty estimation in mechanistic modelling of complex environmental systems using the GLUE methodology, J. Hydrol., 249, 11–29, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(01)00421-8, 2001.
Download
Short summary
Stream, soil and precipitation waters were collected in a tropical montane cloud forest catchment for 2 years and analyzed for stable water isotopes in order to infer transit time distribution functions and mean transit times for semi-steady-state conditions. Samples were aggregated to diverse sampling resolutions for checking the sensitivity of sampling frequency on lumped-model predictions. Results provide valuable information for the planning of future fieldwork in similar catchments.