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
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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

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Cited articles

Benettin, P., van der Velde, Y., van der Zee, S., Rinaldo, A., and Botter, G.: Chloride circulation in a lowland catchment and the formulation of transport by travel time distributions, Water Resour. Res., 49, 4619–4632, https://doi.org/10.1002/wrcr.20309, 2013.
Benettin, P., Kirchner, J., Rinaldo, A., and Botter, G.: Modeling chloride transport using travel-time distributions at Plynlimon, Wales, Water Resour. Res., 51, 3259–3276, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014WR016600, 2015.
Bethke, C. M., and Johnson, T. M.: Groundwater age and groundwater age dating, Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci., 36, 121–152, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.earth.36.031207.124210, 2008.
Beven, K.: On subsurface stormflow: predictions with simple kinematic theory for saturated and unsaturated flows, Water Resour. Res., 18, 1627–1633, 1982.
Beven, K.: A manifesto for the equifinality thesis, J. Hydrol., 320, 18–36, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.07.007, 2006.
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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.
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