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Full-Text Articles in Environmental Sciences

Hydrologic Structure And Function Of Vernal Pools In South Deerfield, Massachusetts, Charlotte Axthelm Oct 2019

Hydrologic Structure And Function Of Vernal Pools In South Deerfield, Massachusetts, Charlotte Axthelm

Masters Theses

Vernal pools are small, ephemeral wetlands lacking an inlet or outlet. These wetlands, also known as seasonal pools, are found in a wide range of biomes, and their characteristics vary based on location. While the vegetation of western U.S. pools, and amphibians of eastern U.S. pools have been extensively studied, many aspects of vernal pools have not been fully characterized. In particular, although the general seasonal wetting and drying cycle is understood qualitatively, few studies have attempted to quantify the hydrological regime of vernal pools in New England. As water level variation drives many, if not all, of the characteristics …


Sources Of Water And Solutes To The Salar De Atacama, Chile: A Coupled Hydrologic, Geochemical, And Groundwater Modeling Study, Lilly G. Corenthal Mar 2016

Sources Of Water And Solutes To The Salar De Atacama, Chile: A Coupled Hydrologic, Geochemical, And Groundwater Modeling Study, Lilly G. Corenthal

Masters Theses

Focused groundwater discharge in endorheic basins provides opportunities to investigate mechanisms for closing hydrologic budgets in arid regions. The Salar de Atacama (SdA), a closed basin in northern Chile, has accumulated over 1800 km3 of halite and a lithium-rich brine since the late Miocene primarily through evapotranspiration of groundwater. The hydrologic balance of SdA and sources of water and solutes required to explain this deposit are not well constrained. An adapted chloride mass balance method drawing on a database of over 200 water sample sites is applied to a remotely-sensed precipitation dataset to estimate spatially-distributed modern groundwater recharge. Comparing …


Impacts Of Three-Dimensional Non-Uniform Groundwater Flows For Quantifying Groundwater-Surface Water Interactions Using Heat As A Tracer, Jonathan M. Reeves Nov 2015

Impacts Of Three-Dimensional Non-Uniform Groundwater Flows For Quantifying Groundwater-Surface Water Interactions Using Heat As A Tracer, Jonathan M. Reeves

Masters Theses

Heat-as-a-tracer has become a common method to quantify surface water-groundwater interactions (SW/GW). However, the method relies on a number of assumptions that are likely violated in natural systems. Numerical studies have explored the effects of violating these fundamental assumptions to various degrees, such as heterogeneous streambed properties, two-dimensional groundwater flow fields and uncertainty in thermal parameters for the 1-dimensional heat-as-a-tracer method. No work to date has addressed the impacts of non-uniform, three-dimensional groundwater flows on the use of heat-as-a-tracer to quantify SW/GW interactions. Synthetic temperature time series were generated using COMSOL Multiphysics for a three-dimensional cube designed to represent a …


Uncertainty In Climatic Change Impacts On Multiscale Watershed Systems, Olga V. Tsvetkova Sep 2013

Uncertainty In Climatic Change Impacts On Multiscale Watershed Systems, Olga V. Tsvetkova

Open Access Dissertations

Uncertainty in climate change plays a major role in watershed systems. The increase in variability and intensity in temperature and precipitation affects hydrologic cycle in spatial and temporal dimensions. Predicting uncertainty in climate change impacts on watershed systems can help to understand future climate-induced risk on watershed systems and is essential for designing policies for mitigation and adaptation. Modeling the temporal patterns of uncertainties is assessed in the New England region for temperature and precipitation patterns over a long term. The regional uncertainty is modeled using Python scripting and GIS to analyze spatial patterns of climate change uncertainties over space …