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research article

Kinematics of age mixing in advection-dispersion models

Benettin, Paolo  
•
Rinaldo, Andrea  
•
Botter, Gianluca
2013
Water Resources Research

This paper investigates age mixing processes arising in advection-dispersion models, where large-scale travel and residence time distributions can be explicitly calculated based on the underlying velocity field. In particular, we analyze spatially integrated age mixing dynamics by comparing the age distributions of the storage and of the outflow(s). The relevance of the work lies in the impact of age mixing dynamics on the shape of travel time distributions (TTDs), which ultimately control the long-term memory of catchment transport processes. We set up a theoretical framework that bridges previous Lagrangian and Eulerian water age theories in heterogeneous media. The framework allows for the analysis of the dynamical connection between water age distributions in large-scale volume and flux samples. Theoretical advances are then illustrated through the application to a finite one-dimensional domain with constant advection and dispersion coefficient. Therein, we analyze the type of mixing emerging for different Peclet numbers and diverse spatiotemporal patterns of solute input. We find that in spite of the enhanced nonstationarity of TTDs, the type of mixing is markedly invariant. Moreover, for relatively low Peclet numbers the different ages available in the control volume are systematically removed from the domain at a rate nearly proportional to their relative abundance (random sampling). Emerging large-scale patterns of age mixing yield theoretical and practical implications for watershed hydrology, where TTDs can be used to infer general patterns of catchment response across scales.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1002/2013Wr014708
Web of Science ID

WOS:000329929100048

Author(s)
Benettin, Paolo  
Rinaldo, Andrea  
Botter, Gianluca
Date Issued

2013

Publisher

American Geophysical Union

Published in
Water Resources Research
Volume

49

Issue

12

Start page

8539

End page

8551

Subjects

advection-dispersion

•

age kinematics

•

travel time distributions

•

transport at catchment scale

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
ECHO  
Available on Infoscience
June 2, 2014
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/103796
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