Articles | Volume 20, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-299-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-20-299-2016
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
19 Jan 2016
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 19 Jan 2016

Aggregation in environmental systems – Part 2: Catchment mean transit times and young water fractions under hydrologic nonstationarity

J. W. Kirchner

Viewed

Total article views: 7,771 (including HTML, PDF, and XML)
HTML PDF XML Total BibTeX EndNote
5,226 2,363 182 7,771 193 229
  • HTML: 5,226
  • PDF: 2,363
  • XML: 182
  • Total: 7,771
  • BibTeX: 193
  • EndNote: 229
Views and downloads (calculated since 18 Mar 2015)
Cumulative views and downloads (calculated since 18 Mar 2015)

Cited

Saved (preprint)

Latest update: 08 Nov 2024
Download

The requested paper has a corresponding corrigendum published. Please read the corrigendum first before downloading the article.

Short summary
Here I show that seasonal tracer cycles yield strongly biased estimates of mean transit times in nonstationary catchments (and, by implication, in real-world catchments). However, they can be used to reliably estimate the fraction of "young" water in streamflow, meaning water that fell as precipitation less than roughly 2–3 months ago. This young water fraction varies systematically between high and low flows and may help in characterizing controls on stream chemistry.