Measurement of groundwater/surface interactions has become an important component of hydrogeology. However, making these measurements remains a challenging and time consuming process. Compounding this is the variety of physical, chemical and thermal methods availalble, and the fact that these techniques are used independently or in isolation. In this work, we combine evolving thermal methods (DTS) with novel introduced tracers and naturally occurring radon in a sub-alpine, managed basin in the Lake Tahoe area. A gaining portion of the stream was instrumented with DTS, during a tracer injection of environmental benign xenon, sulfur hexafluoride and sampling of radon-222 and sulfur-35. In addition, traditional hydrometrics were carried out in order to attempt to quantify groundwater flux into the stream. As far as we know, this is the first time that xenon has been used in a stream setting, and our overall goal is to couple these novel tracer techniques for ecohydrology.
Discipline Categories: HydrogeologyPreferred Presentation Type: Oral