A comparison of catchment travel times and storage deduced from deuterium and tritium tracers using StorAge Selection functions

Rodriguez, Nicolas Björn; Pfister, Laurent; Zehe, Erwin; Klaus, Julian

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-401-2021

Articles | Volume 25, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-401-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-401-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 1

Research article

|

27 Jan 2021

Research article |

| 27 Jan 2021

A comparison of catchment travel times and storage deduced from deuterium and tritium tracers using StorAge Selection functions

Nicolas Björn Rodriguez, Laurent Pfister, Erwin Zehe, and Julian Klaus

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-401-2021-supplement

Data sets

The Weierbach experimental catchment in Luxembourg: a decade of critical zone monitoring in a temperate forest - from hydrological investigations to ecohydrological perspectives, Version 1.0 G. Hissler, N. Martínez-Carreras, F. Barnich, L. Gourdol, J. F. Iffly, J. Juilleret, J. Klaus, and L. Pfister https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4061554

Model code and software

Composite StorAge Selection based model of deuterium and tritium transport in the Weierbach catchment N. B. Rodriguez https://git.list.lu/catchment-eco-hydro/composite_sas_model_2h_3h_weierbach

Short summary

Different parts of water have often been used as tracers to determine the age of water in streams. The stable tracers, such as deuterium, are thought to be unable to reveal old water compared to the radioactive tracer called tritium. We used both tracers, measured in precipitation and in a stream in Luxembourg, to show that this is not necessarily true. It is, in fact, advantageous to use the two tracers together, and we recommend systematically using tritium in future studies.