The Demographics of Water: A Review of Water Ages in the Critical Zone
The Demographics of Water: A Review of Water Ages in the Critical Zone
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DOI：
10.1029/2018rg000633
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发表时间：
2019-07
影响因子：
25.2
通讯作者：
M. Sprenger;C. Stumpp;M. Weiler;W. Aeschbach;S. Allen;P. Benettin;M. Dubbert;A. Hartmann;M. Hrachowitz;J. Kirchner;J. McDonnell;N. Orlowski;D. Penna;S. Pfahl;M. Rinderer;Nicolas B. Rodriguez;Maximilian Schmidt;C. Werner
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
M. Sprenger;C. Stumpp;M. Weiler;W. Aeschbach;S. Allen;P. Benettin;M. Dubbert;A. Hartmann;M. Hrachowitz;J. Kirchner;J. McDonnell;N. Orlowski;D. Penna;S. Pfahl;M. Rinderer;Nicolas B. Rodriguez;Maximilian Schmidt;C. Werner
水通过陆地水文循环和临界区所需的时间是地球系统科学非常感兴趣的问题，对水质和水量有着广泛的影响。到目前为止，大多数水年龄研究都集中在水文循环的个别隔间(或子学科)，如非饱和或饱和地带、植被、大气或河流。然而，最近的研究表明，水文分室(例如，土壤-大气或土壤-地下水)之间界面上的过程控制着这些分室之间水通量的年龄分布，因此可以极大地影响水的旅行时间。在这些界面上，水从完全混合到几乎不混合的变化很大，影响了隔间中的水年龄。尤其是在植被顶部和地下水储存库底部之间高度不均匀的临界区。在这里，我们回顾了关于临界区水龄的各种研究，并提供了(1)在使用水文示踪剂研究水龄方面的新前景和挑战的概述，(2)讨论了由于我们缺乏对过程的理解和将水龄估计转移到个别学科或隔间的方法而产生的限制性假设，以及(3)关于如何改进未来跨学科工作的愿景，以更好地了解控制临界区水龄的大气、植被、土壤、地下水和地表水之间的反馈。
The time that water takes to travel through the terrestrial hydrological cycle and the critical zone is of great interest in Earth system sciences with broad implications for water quality and quantity. Most water age studies to date have focused on individual compartments (or subdisciplines) of the hydrological cycle such as the unsaturated or saturated zone, vegetation, atmosphere, or rivers. However, recent studies have shown that processes at the interfaces between the hydrological compartments (e.g., soil‐atmosphere or soil‐groundwater) govern the age distribution of the water fluxes between these compartments and thus can greatly affect water travel times. The broad variation from complete to nearly absent mixing of water at these interfaces affects the water ages in the compartments. This is especially the case for the highly heterogeneous critical zone between the top of the vegetation and the bottom of the groundwater storage. Here, we review a wide variety of studies about water ages in the critical zone and provide (1) an overview of new prospects and challenges in the use of hydrological tracers to study water ages, (2) a discussion of the limiting assumptions linked to our lack of process understanding and methodological transfer of water age estimations to individual disciplines or compartments, and (3) a vision for how to improve future interdisciplinary efforts to better understand the feedbacks between the atmosphere, vegetation, soil, groundwater, and surface water that control water ages in the critical zone.