Spatial Variability Pattern of Hyporheic Exchange in a braided River

¹ Department of water resources, Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute, Wuhan, Hubei, China
² Hubei Key Laboratory of watershed water resources and ecological environment, Changjiang River Scientific Research Institute, Wuhan, Hubei, China
³ Changjiang Institute of Survey, Planning, Design and Research, Wuhan, Hubei, China

Abstract

The streambed flux is variable in space; the spatial variability results in part from bedforms, but few works on streambed fluxes in channels with strongly abrupt varying bedforms are carried out. Heat as a tracer to delineate the streambed flux pattern has been widely adopted in numerous fields. In this paper, a braided channel with complicated topography was selected as study site, where the temperature was monitored. One-dimensional (1-D) analytical method based on the amplitude attenuation (A_r) and 1-D numerical method were used to interpret the temperature. As a result, streambed fluxes of a total of 50 sites in the braided channel are obtained. From the results we can know the magnitude and direction of streamed flow velocity are spatially variable, even within a 1-m distance. Then, this study summarizes five bedform-driven flux patterns: ① downward flow driven by the head difference between groundwater and stream, ② downward flow related to a meter-scale pool, ③ a transition from upward to downward flow associated with a centimeter-scale riffle, ④ horizontal flow in braided bars and ⑤ upward flow driven by vegetation roots. Overall, multiple physical mechanisms together contributed to the complex streambed flow system, which reflected great challenges for the scaling up of point-in-space seepage flux.