Controls governing active layer thermal hydrology : how predictable subsurface properties influence thaw, groundwater flow, and soil moisture ...
The hydrology of near-surface arctic soils above continuous permafrost, known as the ‘active layer’, is controlled by coupled thermal and hydraulic processes that are not well understood. The poorly-quantified spatial variability in active layer soil thermal and hydraulic properties, compounded with...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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The University of Texas at Austin
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/3296 https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/76207 |
| Summary: | The hydrology of near-surface arctic soils above continuous permafrost, known as the ‘active layer’, is controlled by coupled thermal and hydraulic processes that are not well understood. The poorly-quantified spatial variability in active layer soil thermal and hydraulic properties, compounded with continually-migrating aquifer geometries that are not mechanistically understood, cause our current knowledge of arctic hydrology to be limited. Particularly, we do not mechanistically understand which parameters govern arctic groundwater flows, we do not understand how such governing properties vary across the landscape, and we do not understand the ranges that such landscape variability provides on arctic hydrologic processes. This dissertation investigates these open questions through novel field observations and numerical modeling. In Chapter Two, I show how groundwater flows in the active layer are controlled by highly-variable soil permeability within three variable-thickness soil layers using fieldwork and ... |
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