Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 16:27
Forums
Nutrient Transport in Arctic Watersheds

Hello! My question regards the six different water track sites. What are the major similarities and differences between these sites? Why were these sites picked for research as opposed to other sites? Thanks! I hope things are going great up there! Faith R.

Fri, 05/18/2012 - 09:48

Anonymous

Hi Faith, This is Sarah replying -- thanks for your question! We chose the sites to take advantage of likely differences in snow accumulation and melt rates associated with aspect (east-facing vs. west-facing). In addition, we also wanted to represent some of the range of slope, vegetation type, and drainage areas in the area.
From a practical perspective, we wanted sites that were small enough that we could measure flows easily. We also wanted sites we could hike to with all of our gear, so we selected sites within an hour's walk of pullouts along the haul road. We didn't want to have to rely on helicopters and snowmachines to do the work if we could find suitable sites that were walkable.
Finally, we excluded water tracks that were too close to the road because they might be coated in road dust, and we excluded water tracks that were located below lakes because of their different biogeochemical processing.
We spent time looking at potential sites on Google Earth and other satellite imagery of the area, and then we hiked around to visit about 20 sites before choosing these ones.
Best,
Sarah