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Persistent Identifier
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perma:LIST.6HBSNG |
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Publication Date
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2026-07-06 |
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Title
| The Demographics of Water: A Review of Water Ages in the Critical Zone [* Cross-Reference *] |
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Other Identifier
| https://doi.org/10.1029/2018RG000633
SCOPUS_ID:85068217460 |
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Author
| Sprenger, Matthias (Universität Freiburg, CSIC - Instituto de Diagnostico Ambiental y Estudios del Agua (IDAEA), NC State University) - ORCID: 0000-0003-1221-2767
Stumpp, Christine (BOKU University) - ORCID: 0000-0001-9041-2735
Weiler, Markus (Universität Freiburg) - ORCID: 0000-0001-6245-6917
Aeschbach, Werner (Universität Heidelberg) - ORCID: 0000-0003-0917-1239
Allen, Scott T. (ETH Zürich) - ORCID: 0000-0002-4465-2348
Benettin, Paolo (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) - ORCID: 0000-0001-7556-1417
Dubbert, Maren (Universität Freiburg) - ORCID: 0000-0002-2352-8516
Hartmann, Andreas (Universität Freiburg, University of Bristol) - ORCID: 0000-0003-0407-742X
Hrachowitz, Markus (Faculteit Civiele Techniek en Geowetenschappen, TU Delft) - ORCID: 0000-0003-0508-1017
Kirchner, James W. (ETH Zürich, Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft WSL) - ORCID: 0000-0001-6577-3619
McDonnell, Jeffrey J. (Global Institute for Water Security, Ludong University, University of Birmingham)
Orlowski, Natalie (Universität Freiburg) - ORCID: 0000-0003-4368-4580
Penna, Daniele (Università degli Studi di Firenze) - ORCID: 0000-0001-6915-0697
Pfahl, Stephan (Freie Universität Berlin) - ORCID: 0000-0002-9872-6090
Rinderer, Michael (Universität Freiburg) - ORCID: 0000-0001-7690-7686
Rodriguez, Nicolas (Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology) - ORCID: 0000-0001-8514-1782
Schmidt, Maximilian (Universität Heidelberg) - ORCID: 0000-0001-7612-5123
Werner, Christiane (Universität Freiburg) - ORCID: 0000-0002-7676-9057 |
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Point of Contact
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Use email button above to contact.
LIST RDS (LIST) |
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Description
| The time that water takes to travel through the terrestrial hydrological cycle and the critical zone is of great interest in Earth system sciences with broad implications for water quality and quantity. Most water age studies to date have focused on individual compartments (or subdisciplines) of the hydrological cycle such as the unsaturated or saturated zone, vegetation, atmosphere, or rivers. However, recent studies have shown that processes at the interfaces between the hydrological compartments (e.g., soil-atmosphere or soil-groundwater) govern the age distribution of the water fluxes between these compartments and thus can greatly affect water travel times. The broad variation from complete to nearly absent mixing of water at these interfaces affects the water ages in the compartments. This is especially the case for the highly heterogeneous critical zone between the top of the vegetation and the bottom of the groundwater storage. Here, we review a wide variety of studies about water ages in the critical zone and provide (1) an overview of new prospects and challenges in the use of hydrological tracers to study water ages, (2) a discussion of the limiting assumptions linked to our lack of process understanding and methodological transfer of water age estimations to individual disciplines or compartments, and (3) a vision for how to improve future interdisciplinary efforts to better understand the feedbacks between the atmosphere, vegetation, soil, groundwater, and surface water that control water ages in the critical zone. (2019-09-01)
***This entry has been automatically imported via Infodoc(ASO) CSV by LIST harvest scripts. Please refer to https://doi.org/10.1029/2018RG000633 for the original and latest version of the dataset and data downloads*** (2026-06-11) |
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Subject
| Earth and Environmental Sciences |
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Keyword
| critical Zone
stable isotopes
terrestrial water cycle
tracer hydrology
travel times
water ages |
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Funding Information
| Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg: -25-11/31 |
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Deposit Date
| 2019-09-01 |
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Data Type
| Review |
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Data Source
| Reviews of Geophysics; ISSN: 87551209, eISSN: 19449208, vol. 57, n° 3, pp. 800-834 |