Using Stream Heat Budgets to Quantify Groundwater Discharge and Hyporheic Exchange

Small-scale stream and riparian features in low order and headwater streams can greatly influence stream temperature.  Completion of a detailed stream temperature survey using a fiber optic distributed temperature sensor and discrete temperature measurements, geomorphic analysis of LiDAR data, and heat budget modeling of non-advective and advective heat flux resulted in identification of discrete groundwater discharge zones and stable cooling zones in the stream.  The heat budget model also provided estimates of tributary discharge, groundwater discharge and hyporheic exchange.  

These field and analysis techniques can be applied to groundwater/surface water contamination studies, water resource evaluations and studies of stream habitat integrity. The findings also have implications for low order stream protection, stream restoration design and stream temperature sampling procedures.  The relative importance of low order streams to the larger stream and river systems, in terms of ecological linkages, sources of primary production, nutrient cycling, and habitat refugia cannot be overemphasized.