Saturated hydraulic conductivity of fen peat for different water salinities

DOI

Coastal peatlands represent an interface between marine and terrestrial ecosystems; their hydrology is affected by salt and fresh water inflow alike. Previous studies on bog peat have shown that pore water salinity can have an impact on the saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) of peat because of chemical pore dilation effects. In this study, we aimed at quantifying the impact of higher salinities (up to 3.5% NaCl) on Ks of fen peat. Two experiments employing a constant‐head upward‐flow permeameter and differing in measurement and salinity change duration were conducted. Additionally, a third experiment to determine the impact of water salinity on the release of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) of the studied peat type was carried out. The results show a decrease of Ks with time, which does not depend on the water salinity but is differently shaped for different peat types. We assume pore clogging due to a conglomerate of physical, chemical, and biological processes, which rather depend on water movement rate and time than on water salinity. However, an increased water salinity did increase the DOC release. We conclude that salinity‐dependent behaviour of Ks is a function of peat chemistry and that for some peat types, salinity may only affect the DOC release without having a pronounced impact on water flow.

Supplement to: Gosch, Lennart; Janssen, Manon; Lennartz, Bernd (2018): Impact of the water salinity on the hydraulic conductivity of fen peat. Hydrological Processes, 32(9), 1214-1222

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.899600
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.11478
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.899600
Provenance
Creator Gosch, Lennart ORCID logo; Janssen, Manon ORCID logo; Lennartz, Bernd ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2019
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Language English
Resource Type Supplementary Dataset; Dataset
Format text/tab-separated-values
Size 1050 data points
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (12.125 LON, 54.009 LAT); Pölchow, Rostock, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany