Concepts

A dimensionless ratio quantifying stream competence or a stream flow's capacity to mobilize bed particles of a given size

Functions that describe how water of different ages is selected for release from catchment storage

The depth below which the total annual groundwater flux is a sufficiently small fraction of the annual watershed hydrologic budget that its exclusion from watershed numerical models has a negligible i...

Governance systems that can adjust and respond to changing conditions and challenges

Physical processes that create fractures in subsurface bedrock, enabling geogenic elements to enter rivers and biogeochemical cycles

Integrated characterization of subsurface, surface, and vegetation properties spanning the full vertical profile

The volume of surface and ground water consumed as a result of the production of a good, expressed as the reciprocal of economic water productivity

Process by which tree canopies intercept and reduce throughfall of precipitation to surface soils

Assessment of forecast skill for predicting occurrence of events within defined categories using contingency table analysis

Water electrical conductivity that increases as solutes concentrate during pond drying

The fraction of water that was originally withdrawn from a source for irrigation and is subsequently removed from availability owing to evaporation, transpiration, or incorporation into crops

High elevation ridges that separate drainage systems flowing to different oceans

Temperature region roughly between -10 and -20°C where rapid growth of ice into anisotropic plate-like shapes occurs

Upland-embedded wetlands as defined by Smith et al. 1995

Metric defined as d-excess = δ²H - 8·δ¹⁸O, indicative of non-equilibrium conditions during evaporation and sublimation processes

Analytical approach that captures the difference in concentration over the difference in discharge between sampling stations to account for spatial variability

Physical mixing process that spreads solutes during transport through porous media

Area drained by a river system

Diversion of water from one drainage system to another through headward erosion

Phenomenon where distant seismic events can trigger local fracturing or seismic activity through propagating seismic waves

Measures outputs generated per unit of water used, computed as dollar value of crop marketings divided by consumptive use of water for irrigation

The fraction of pore volume in rock that contributes to fluid flow, excluding isolated or dead-end pores

The component of atmospheric gas dissolved from air bubbles trapped below the water table when it rises during recharge events

High-discharge events that scour stream benthos and reset ecological succession

Change in water flow direction due to uplift outpacing erosion rates