Abstract
Performing tracer tests using artificial tracer compounds is a common practice to characterize natural streams regarding their (reactive) transport properties. Recently, the fluorescent compound resazurin was introduced as a reactive stream tracer to quantify hyporheic exchange and metabolic activity of streams. This tracer, together with its reaction product resorufin and a conservative tracer (in our case fluorescein), provides additional information about transport properties of the stream and its hyporheic zone and can therefore overcome restrictions that are commonly affiliated with the use of conservative tracers alone. However, all previously published studies using this tracer system were based on manual sampling of the water. This usually limits the number of measurements and thus the achievable temporal resolution, and potentially endangers data quality due to inadequate handling of samples. In this paper, a modified version of the GGUN-FL30 on-line fluorometer is presented in which the optics have been modified to allow measuring the concentrations of all three tracers simultaneously at intervals of 10 s. Experiments under controlled and natural conditions showed that the performance of the on-line fluorometer regarding tracer separation efficiency and practical detection limits is comparable to a high-performance laboratory spectrofluorometer. Furthermore, suggestions are given on how to correct tracer signal fluctuations caused by temporal changes in temperature and pH that might occur during a field tracer test.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Argerich A, Haggerty R, Marti E, Sabater F, Zarnetske J (2011) Quantification of metabolically active transient storage (MATS) in two reaches with contrasting transient storage and ecosystem respiration. J Geophys Res-Biogeo 116:G03034. doi:10.1029/2010jg001379
Aumen NG (1990) Concepts and methods for assessing solute dynamics in stream ecosystems. J N Am Benthol Soc 9:95–119
Benischke R, Goldscheider N, Smart C (2007) Tracer Techniques. In: Robins NS (ed) Methods in Karst Hydrology. Taylor & Francis/Balkema, Wallingford
Boulton AJ, Datry T, Kasahara T, Mutz M, Stanford JA (2010) Ecology and management of the hyporheic zone: stream-groundwater interactions of running waters and their floodplains. J N Am Benthol Soc 29:26–40. doi:10.1899/08-017.1
Cirpka O, Reichert P, Wanner O, Muller SR, Schwarzenbach RP (1993) Gas-Exchange at River Cascades—field experiments and model-calculations. Environ Sci Technol 27:2086–2097
Einsiedl F (2005) Flow system dynamics and water storage of a fissured-porous karst aquifer characterized by artificial and environmental tracers. J Hydrol 312:312–321. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2005.03.031
Einsiedl F, Maloszewski P (2005) Tracer tests in fractured rocks with a new fluorescent dye—pyrene-1, 3, 6, 8-tetra sulphonic acid (PTS). Hydrolog Sci J 50:543–554
Erban T, Hubert J (2010) Determination of pH in regions of the midguts of acaridid mites. J Insect Sci 10:42
Fischer H, Pusch M (2001) Comparison of bacterial production in sediments, epiphyton and the pelagic zone of a lowland river. Freshwater Biol 46:1335–1348. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2427.2001.00753.x
Goldscheider N, Meiman J, Pronk M, Smart C (2008) Tracer tests in karst hydrogeology and speleology. Int J Speleol 37:27–40
Gooseff MN, Wondzell SM, Haggerty R, Anderson J (2003) Comparing transient storage modeling and residence time distribution (RTD) analysis in geomorphically varied reaches in the Lookout Creek basin, Oregon, USA. Adv Water Resour 26:925–937. doi:10.1016/S0309-1708(03)00105-2
Gooseff MN, LaNier J, Haggerty R, Kokkeler K (2005) Determining in-channel (dead zone) transient storage by comparing solute transport in a bedrock channel-alluvial channel sequence, Oregon. Water Resour Res 41:W06014. doi:10.1029/2004wr003513
Gooseff MN, Payn RA, Zarnetske JP, Bowden WB, McNamara JP, Bradford JH (2008) Comparison of in-channel mobile-immobile zone exchange during instantaneous and constant rate stream tracer additions: implications for design and interpretation of non-conservative tracer experiments. J Hydrol 357:112–124. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2008.05.006
Grathwohl P, Rügner H, Wöhling T, Osenbrück K, Schwientek M, Gayler S, Wollschläger U, Selle B, Pause M, Delfs J-O, Grzeschik M, Weller U, Ivanov M, Cirpka OA, Maier U, Kuch B, Nowak W, Wulfmeyer V, Warrach-Sagi K, Streck T, Attinger S, Bilke L, Dietrich P, Fleckenstein JH, Kalbacher T, Kolditz O, Rink K, Samaniego L, Vogel H-J, Werban U, Teutsch G (2013): Catchments as reactors—A comprehensive approach for water fluxes and solute turn-over. Environ. Earth Sci., 69(2), doi:10.1007/s12665-013-2281-7
Haggerty R, Reeves P (2002) STAMMT-L version 1.0 user’s manual. Sandia National Laboratories, p 76
Haggerty R, Argerich A, Marti E (2008) Development of a ‘‘smart’’ tracer for the assessment of microbiological activity and sediment-water interaction in natural waters: the resazurin-resorufin system. Water Resour Res 44:W00D01. doi:10.1029/2007wr006670
Haggerty R, Marti E, Argerich A, von Schiller D, Grimm NB (2009) Resazurin as a “smart’’ tracer for quantifying metabolically active transient storage in stream ecosystems. J Geophys Res-Biogeo 114:G03014. doi:10.1029/2008jg000942
Kangasniemi KH (2004) Fluorescent diagnostics for imaging dissolved oxygen. University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson
Kasnavia T, Vu D, Sabatini DA (1999) Fluorescent dye and media properties affecting sorption and tracer selection. Ground Water 37:376–381. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6584.1999.tb01114.x
Käss W (2004) Geohydrologische Markierungstechnik. Lehrbuch der Hydrogeologie, 2 edn. p 557
Klonis N, Sawyer H (1996) Spectral Properties of the Prototropic Forms of Fluorescein in Aqueous Solution. J Fluoresc 6(3):147–157
Leibundgut C, Maloszewski P, Külls C (2009) Tracers in Hydrology. Wiley, New York
Liao ZJ, Cirpka OA (2011) Shape-free inference of hyporheic traveltime distributions from synthetic conservative and “smart’’ tracer tests in streams. Water Resour Res 47:W07510. doi:10.1029/2010wr009927
O’Brien J, Wilson I, Orton T, Pognan F (2000) Investigation of the Alamar Blue (resazurin) fluorescent dye for the assessment of mammalian cell cytotoxicity. Eur J Biochem 267:5421–5426. doi:10.1046/j.1432-1327.2000.01606.x
Osenbrück K, Wöhling T, Lemke D, Rohrbach N, Schwientek M, Leven C, Castillo Alvarez C, Taubald H, Cirpka OA (2013) Assessing hyporheic exchange and associated travel times by hydraulic, chemical, and isotopic monitoring at the Steinlach Test Site, Germany. Environ Earth Sci. doi:10.1007/s12665-012-2155 (in press)
Payn RA, Gooseff MN, Benson DA, Cirpka OA, Zarnetske JP, Bowden WB, McNamara JP, Bradford JH (2008) Comparison of instantaneous and constant-rate stream tracer experiments through non-parametric analysis of residence time distributions. Water Resour Res 44:W06404. doi:10.1029/2007wr006274
Runkel L (1998) One-dimensional Transport with Inflow and Storage (OTIS): a Solute Transport Model for Streams and Rivers. Water Res Investigat 98:80
Schnegg P-A, Flynn R (2002) Online field fluorometers for hydrogeological tracer tests. Isotope und Tracer in der Wasserforschung 19:8
Schnegg PA, Perret C, Hauet A, Parrel D, Saysset G, Vignon P (2011) Stream gauging by dilution of fluorescent tracers and state of the art of the EDF hydroclimatological observation network. In: 9th Conference on Limestone Hydrogeology, Besançon
Thanh NTK (2005) Gold nanoparticles in bioanalytical assays and sensors. Ser Chem Sens Biosens 3:16. doi:10.1007/5346_008
Wagner BJ, Harvey JW (1997) Experimental design for estimating parameters of rate-limited mass transfer: analysis of stream tracer studies. Water Resour Res 33:1731–1741
Zanker V, Peter W (1958) Die prototropen Formen des Fluoresceins. Chemische Berichte 91(3):572–580
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Roy Haggerty at Oregon State University for his advice on the resazurin/resorufin tracer system. This work was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts of Baden-Württemberg (AZ Zu 33-721.3-2), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig (UFZ), and the National Science Foundation grant EAR 08-38338 to Roy Haggerty at Oregon State University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lemke, D., Schnegg, PA., Schwientek, M. et al. On-line fluorometry of multiple reactive and conservative tracers in streams. Environ Earth Sci 69, 349–358 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-013-2305-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-013-2305-3