Contributions of Event Water to Streamflow in an Agricultural Catchment

Abstract: In agricultural catchments, hydrological processes play an important role in the export of nutrients. Water that enters a catchment during a rain event (event water) can have different flow paths and residence times. These affect the transport and biogeochemical transformation of nutrients until the water discharges at the outlet where catchments are usually monitored.This work focused on the contributions of event water and pre-event water (water that was already stored in the catchment before a rainfall event) to the stream. The work is necessary for further studies to develop an understanding of the relation of nutrients export and water flow paths. The method was based on isotopic hydrograph separation and performed on existing data. The stable isotope signature of oxygen in water (δ18O) was used as a tracer. A new study is planned using δ18O to distinguish different flow paths and residence times of water, and therefore a sequential rainfall collector was tested and improved for this purpose.The results of the hydrograph separation show that up to 54% of an increased discharge from a rainwater event is event water, but also that data in a higher temporal resolution is needed to quantify contributions of event water to the runoff for all the events. Additional and more advanced experiments of the rainfall collector would be an advantage, but it can also be used in the field as it is today. Based on the analysis and the revised sequential rainfall collector, a sampling strategy for future work is described.