Summary: | As mountain headwater catchments increase in size to the meso-scale, they incorporate new landscape elements including mountain-valley transition zones. Mountain-valley transition zones form part of the mountain front, influence groundwater (GW)-stream interactions, and impact hydrologic response and stream water composition. Mountain front recharge (MFR) in mountain-valley transition zones and subsequent GW discharge to streams in the valley bottom are important hydrological processes. These GW-stream interactions are dynamic in both space and time, playing a key role in regulating the amount, timing, and chemistry of stream water reaching the valley bottom. I hypothesize that mountain-valley transitions function as hydrologic and biogeochemical buffers via GW recharge and subsequent GW discharge. More specifically, that streams often recharge GW near the mountain front and receive stored GW further downstream. To investigate these processes I applied physical hydrology techniques, and geochemical hydrograph separations in the Humphrey Creek watershed in southwestern Montana. This allowed me to assess the spatial and temporal variability of mountain front GW recharge and GW-stream interactions across a mountain-valley transition. Geochemical signatures were used to partition stream flow into alpine runoff and GW sources. These results indicate that much of the alpine stream water recharged GW at the mountain front and that stored GW of a different chemical composition sustained down-valley stream discharge. Down-valley stream discharge was dominated by GW inputs and responded to GW stage more closely than upstream reaches. A critical GW stage height was necessary for down-valley channel flow, as this was the only major input to channel flow during early and late season base flow. Conversely, GW contributed little to stream flow in the upper reaches of the study area. GW-stream water exchange served as a flow and geochemical buffer, resulting in significant changes in stream chemistry from the alpine, to the MFR zone, to the valley bottom and muting fluctuations in channel flow, both at high and low flow. Implications are that mountain front GW recharge magnitudes can control valley aquifer storage state which combined with alpine runoff magnitude and valley bottom GW discharge controls stream water quantity and geochemical composition downstream.
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