A review of methods for measuring groundwater–surface  water exchange in braided rivers

Coluccio, Katie; Morgan, Leanne Kaye

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4397-2019

Articles | Volume 23, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4397-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-23-4397-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 23, issue 10

Review article

|

29 Oct 2019

Review article |

| 29 Oct 2019

A review of methods for measuring groundwater–surface water exchange in braided rivers

Katie Coluccio and Leanne Kaye Morgan

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Final revised paper (published on 29 Oct 2019)
Preprint (discussion started on 17 Dec 2018)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #1, 31 Jan 2019
- AC1: 'Response to Reviewer #1', Katie Coluccio, 18 Mar 2019
RC2: 'hess-2018-566', Anonymous Referee #2, 15 Feb 2019
- AC2: 'Response to Reviewer #2', Katie Coluccio, 18 Mar 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (further review by editor and referees) (03 Apr 2019) by Patricia Saco

AR by Katie Coluccio on behalf of the Authors (01 May 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (18 May 2019) by Patricia Saco

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (10 Jul 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The paper reviews methods for the quantification of braided river exchanges, and discusses various quantification approaches and their pros and cons. The paper could be improved by emphasizing methods that can be used for characterization and process understanding, as well as those used for quantification. The main difficulty with braided river studies may not be the difficulty in taking measurements as much as the difficulty in interpreting what the measurement results actually mean. The approaches to quantification that have been outlined by the authors do require a physical context in order to interpret the values measured after all.

It follows that a key subject not covered by the authors is process and conceptual understanding of subsurface hydrology of braided rivers. This has implications for the application of different methods and interpretation of the data derived, as well as the use of hydrological terminology within braided river settings. For example, how does a practitioner define the hyporheic zone or hyporheic exchange for a braided river? The problem stems from there being very few studies on braided river subsurface hydrology and conceptualisation (Huber and Huggenberger 2016 is a notable exception). Addressing the conceptualisation of subsurface braided river hydrology, or lack of in the literature, provides the authors an opportunity to highlight the potential for characterization methods (eg geophysics, remote sensing) to improve our understanding of how braided rivers could work in the subsurface. This in turn helps us to interpret field measurements and clarifies our terminology.

A paper focused more specifically on braided rivers could be achieved via a restructuring to bring issues/knowledge gaps in braided rivers to the forefront, condensing of the descriptions for individual methods, and moving much of the current discussion to the relevant methods sections.

Referee Report: PDF

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RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (13 Aug 2019)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (29 Aug 2019) by Patricia Saco

AR by Katie Coluccio on behalf of the Authors (05 Sep 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (23 Sep 2019) by Patricia Saco

AR by Katie Coluccio on behalf of the Authors (25 Sep 2019)

Short summary

Braided rivers are uncommon internationally but are important freshwater resources. However, there is limited understanding of how characteristics unique to braided rivers affect groundwater–surface water flow paths. This article reviews prior studies that have investigated groundwater–surface water interactions in these rivers and their associated aquifers to provide guidance on methodologies most suitable for future work in braided rivers and highlight gaps in current knowledge.