NSF Award
2330004
Many areas in mountainous regions are experiencing more frequent and extreme weather conditions, such as heavy snowfall and drought, due to global warming. The impacts of these changing weather patterns on water resources available to society and ecosystems are still not fully understood. In spring 2023, many cooler regions in the western US received extremely heavy snowfalls, and in some locations, the recorded snow water equivalent exceeded historical values. This research aims to determine how mountain hydrological systems respond to such exceptionally heavy snowfall. This research will focus on determining how much of the melted snow water seeps into the ground during the wet season and how plants utilize the water stored in the soil and rocks during the dry summer. The scientific data collected through this study will provide valuable insights into how groundwater mitigates the adverse effects of climate change. Additionally, this project will offer training opportunities for one graduate student and produce educational materials for a course offered to hydrology graduate students from approximately ten universities. The valuable data collected for this project has potential to improve computational simulation techniques, which could inform future water resource management and benefit society.<br/><br/>This research will use advanced geophysical imaging techniques to understand how anomalously wet conditions impact how meltwater enters and travels through the subsurface, and how subsurface water becomes available for use by vegetation, streamflow, and groundwater recharge. The study will be carried out at two sites in the Dry Creek Experimental Watershed near Boise, Idaho, where existing hydrometeorological information will supplement new geophysical imaging methods. Time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography will be used to monitor the daily or weekly resistivity variations related to subsurface water storage changes. A newly developed resistivity inversion scheme incorporating critical zone subsurface structure will be used to reconstruct the spatiotemporal resistivity distribution along a transect at each study site. The site-specific petrophysical relationship between resistivity and water content will also be determined such that the subsurface water dynamics can be estimated from resistivity data. The study will complement ongoing efforts investigating water uptake strategies by plants, streamflow generation, and groundwater recharge to enhance understanding of how extreme weather events impact hydrological processes in mountain systems. <br/><br/>This award is co-funded by the Hydrologic Sciences and Geophysics programs.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
