A coupled subsurface-flow and metabolism model to study the effects of solute fluxes in the hyporheic zone

Abstract

The hyporheic zone and the streambed host a great part of the energy and material fluxes through river ecosystems. However, the role of heterogeneities in the hyporheic zone in metabolism is not clearly understood. This paper proposes a new way to approach the question by using a coupled subsurface-flow and metabolism model for investigating the role of heterogeneities in the hyporheic metabolism. Our results show that (i) our coupled model is feasible for investigating solute fluxes in the hyporheic zone under heterogeneous set-ups, and (ii) the incorporation of heterogeneities seems be of relevance for hyporheic metabolism estimations