Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Annual Water Budgets for a Seasonally Inundated Sinkhole Wetland

  • Article
  • Published:
Wetlands Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Annual water budgets spanning 2 years, 2004 and 2005, are constructed for a sinkhole wetland in the Tennessee Highland Rim following conversion of 13 % of the watershed area to impervious surfaces. Surface runoff was the dominant input, with a contribution of 56.4 % of the total. An average of 18.9 % of gross precipitation was intercepted by the canopy and evaporated. Deep recharge varied from 55.5 % (2004) to 52.2 % (2005) of total outflow. Evapotranspiration accounted for 46.2 % of the total losses, with an average of 50.3 % lost from soil profile storage. The annual water budgets indicate that deep recharge is a significant hydrologic function performed by isolated sinkhole wetlands, or karst pans, on the Tennessee Highland Rim. Continued hydrologic monitoring of sinkhole wetlands are needed to evaluate hydrologic function and response to anthropogenic impacts. The regression technique developed to estimate surface runoff entering the wetland is shown to provide reasonable annual runoff estimates, but further testing is needed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Allen RG, Pereira LS, Raes D, Smith M (1998) Crop evapotranspiration guidelines for computing crop water requirements. Land and Water Development Division, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Rome

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnold JG, Potter KN, King KW, Allen PM (2005) Estimation of soil cracking and the effect on surface runoff in a Texas blackland prairie watershed. Hydrological Processes 19(3):589–603

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brinson MM (1993) A hydrogeomorphic classification for wetlands. U.S. Army Engineer Waterways Experiment Station, Vicksburg, MS, USA. Wetlands Research Program Technical Report WRP-DE-4

  • Brooks RT (2009) Potential impacts of global climate change on the hydrology and ecology of ephemeral freshwater systems of the northeastern United States. Climate Change 95:469–483

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Favero L, Mattiuzzo E, Franco D (2007) Practical results of a water budget estimation for a constructed wetland. Wetlands 27(2):230–239

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greear PF (1967) Composition, diversity, and structure of vegetation of some natural ponds in Georgia. Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Georgia, Athens

    Google Scholar 

  • Hargreaves GH, Samani ZA (1985) Reference crop evapotranspiration from temperature. Applied Engineering in Agriculture 1(2):96–99

    Google Scholar 

  • Hendricks EL, Goodwin MH (1952) Water-level fluctuations in limestone sinks in southwest Georgia. P. 157–245. In Contributions to the Hydrology of the United States, 1948–1952. U.S. Geological Survey Water Supply Paper 1110

  • Hill AJ (2007) Monitoring and modeling the hydrology of a forested sinkhole wetland on the Tennessee highland rim. Ph.D. dissertation. Tennessee Technological University, Cookeville

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill AJ, Neary VS (2007) Estimating evapotranspiration and seepage for a sinkhole wetland from diurnal surface water cycles. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 43(6):1359–1619

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hill AJ, Neary VS (2009) Hydrologic response of a forested sinkhole wetland to different land management scenarios. J Environ Hydrol, Volume 17, Paper 5

  • Hill AJ, Neary VS, Morgan KL (2006) Hydrologic modeling as a development tool for HGM functional assessment models. Wetlands 26(1):161–180

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson MS, Lehmann J (2006) Stemflow and root-induced preferential flow: the double-funneling of trees. Ecoscience 13:324–333

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kadlec RH, Wallace SD (2009) Treatment wetlands. Taylor and Francis Group, Boca Raton

    Google Scholar 

  • Mansell RS, Bloom SA, Sun G (2000) A model for wetland hydrology: description and validation. Soil Science 165:384–397

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Millar JB (1971) Shoreline-area ratio as a factor in the rate of water loss from small sloughs. Journal of Hydrology 14:259–284

    Google Scholar 

  • Moran J, Kelly S, Skeffington MS, Gormally M (2009) The use of GIS techniques to quantify the hydrological regime of a karst wetland (Skealoghan turlough) in Ireland. Applied Vegetation Science 11(1):25–31

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Driscoll MA, Parizek RR (2003) The hydrologic catchment area of a chain of karst wetlands in central Pennsylvania, USA. Wetlands 23(1):171–179

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Driscoll MA, Parizek RR (2008) Geological controls on seasonal-pool hydroperiod in a karst setting. Wetlands 28(4):1004–1017

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Poiani KA, Johnson WC, Swanson GA, Winter TC (1996) Climate change and northern prairie wetlands: simulations of long-term dynamics. Limnology and Oceanography 41(5):871–881

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ponce VM (1989) Engineering hydrology, principles and practices. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs

    Google Scholar 

  • Shofner GA, Mills HH, Duke JE (2001) A simple map index of karstification and its relationship to sinkhole and cave distribution in Tennessee. Journal of Cave and Karst Studies 63(2):67–75

    Google Scholar 

  • Sprecher SW (2000) Installing Monitoring Wells/Piezometers in Wetlands, ERDC TN-WRAP-00-02, U.S. Army Research and Development Center, Vicksburg, MS

  • Sun G, Callahan TJ, Pyzoha JE, Trettin CC (2006) Modeling the climatic and subsurface stratigraphy controls on the hydrology of a Carolina bay wetland in South Carolina, USA. Wetlands 26:567:580

    Google Scholar 

  • Tiner RW (2003) Geographically isolated wetlands of the United States. Wetlands 23:494–516

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Department of Agriculture (1992) Soil survey for Putnam County, Tennessee. Soil Conservation Service, TN

    Google Scholar 

  • Van der Kamp G, Hayashi M (1998) The groundwater recharge function of small wetlands in the semi-arid northern prairies. Great Plains Research 8:39–56

  • White WB (1988) Geomorphology and Hydrology of Karst Terrains. Oxford University Press, Inc., NY

    Google Scholar 

  • Winter TC (1981) Uncertainties in estimating the water balance of lakes. Journal of the American Water Resources Association 17(1):82–115

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolfe WJ (1996) Karst wetlands on the Barrens, geomorphic control of wetland hydrology and plant distribution on the Highland Rim of Tennessee. Ph.D. Dissertation. Clark University, Worchester

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering, University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Blvd., Evansville, IN, 47712, USA

    A. Jason Hill

  2. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Energy-Water-Ecosystems Engineering, Environmental Sciences Division, P.O. Box 2008 MS6036, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831-6036, USA

    Vincent S. Neary

Authors
  1. A. Jason Hill
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Vincent S. Neary
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. Jason Hill.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

ESM 1

Top elevation, installation depth, ground elevation, and screened aquifer for 11 monitoring wells shown in Fig. 2. Note: Lowest elevation in wetland = 29.212 m. (DOC 66 kb)

ESM 2

Measured monthly gross precipitation, throughfall, and canopy interception from May 2004-December 2005: (a) Interception as a % of gross precipitation; error bars indicate one standard error and (b) Gross precipitation and throughfall totals. (DOC 113 kb)

ESM 3

Measured minimum and maximum temperatures and solar radiation and reference evapotranspiration (ETo) calculated with the FAO Penman-Monteith equation from 2004 to 2005. (DOC 137 kb)

ESM 4

Assumed temporal distribution of crop coefficient (kc) used to calculate potential ET from reference evapotranspiration estimates (ETo). Independent estimates of kc calculated from data reported by Hill and Neary (2007) are shown for comparison. (DOC 266 kb)

ESM 5

Comparison of ET estimates calculated with the Penman-Monteith equation to independent estimates reported by Hill and Neary (2007). (DOC 270 kb)

ESM 6

Comparison of surface water (SW, solid line) elevations to water level elevations in monitoring wells during the reemergence of ponded conditions in September of 2004. (DOC 115 kb)

ESM 7

Comparison of surface waer (SW, solid line) elevations to water level elevations in monitoring wells for 7 months in 2005. (DOC 169 kb)

ESM 8

Relationship between wetland stage and hydraulic gradient for 5 wells. Refer to Fig. 2 for well locations. Stage values are measured at well WCW. Negative values of stage indicate the water table is below the ground surface. Negative values for hydraulic gradient indicate discharge conditions. (DOC 68 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hill, A.J., Neary, V.S. Annual Water Budgets for a Seasonally Inundated Sinkhole Wetland. Wetlands 32, 963–974 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-012-0331-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-012-0331-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation