Longitudinal observations of dissolved chemistry in a water track, Upper Kuparuk River Basin, Alaska, 2018

• Main Authors: Harms, Tamara, Rocher-Ros, Gerard
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Arctic Data Center 2020
• Subjects: water tracks; carbon; dissolved CO2; dissolved inorganic carbon; discharge; tundra; 13C-DIC; dissolved organic carbon; Arctic; Arctic Ocean; permafrost; Tundra; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.18739/a2j09w47g; https://arcticdata.io/catalog/view/doi:10.18739/A2J09W47G

This research evaluates how climate-induced changes in water and nutrient cycles on land are propagated to stream networks. Increased export of water and the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus from river networks to the Arctic Ocean reflects shifts in patterns of water and nutrient movement in the arctic. Changing climate may contribute to such shifts by causing release of nutrients from thawing permafrost, altering precipitation patterns, increasing rates of biogeochemical reactions, or expanding storage capacity in thawed soils. These changes may have far-reaching effects because flowing water connects land to downstream aquatic ecosystems, but the flowpaths connecting terrestrial ecosystems to stream networks remain poorly understood. This research focuses on transport and reaction of water and solutes within water tracks, which are linear regions of surface and subsurface flow that connect hill slopes to streams and account for up to 35% of watershed area in arctic tundra. Specific objectives are to: 1) quantify sources of water and dissolved nutrients to water tracks, 2) identify effects of snow accumulation, thaw depth, and storm characteristics on storage and transport of water and solutes, and 3) estimate the effects of hydrology on rates of nutrient cycling in water tracks. This dataset contains water chemistry and discharge that was measured every ~20 meters (m) along ~250 m (m) of a water track draining upland moist acidic tundra in July 2018. Analyses focused on species of inorganic carbon.