Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Version of Record

Publication Date

8-9-2016

Abstract

Beaver ponds are surface water features that are transient through space and time. Such qualities complicate the inclusion of beaver ponds in local and regional water balances, and in hydrological models, as reliable estimates of surface water storage are difficult to acquire without time and labour intensive topographic surveys. A simpler approach to overcome this challenge is needed, given the abundance of the beaver ponds in North America, Eurasia and southern South America. We investigated whether simple morphometric characteristics derived from readily available aerial imagery or quickly measured field attributes of beaver ponds can be used to approximate surface water storage among the range of environmental settings in which beaver ponds are found. Studied were a total of 40 beaver ponds from four different sites in North and South America. The Simplified V-A-h approach, originally developed for prairie potholes, was tested. With only two measurements of pond depth and corresponding surface area, this method estimated surface water storage in beaver ponds within 5% on average. Beaver pond morphometry was characterized by a median basin coefficient of 0.91, and dam length and pond surface area were strongly correlated with beaver pond storage capacity, regardless of geographic setting. These attributes provide a means for coarsely estimating surface water storage capacity in beaver ponds. Overall, this research demonstrates that reliable estimates of surface water storage in beaver ponds only requires simple measurements derived from aerial imagery and/or brief visits to the field. Future research efforts should be directed at incorporating these simple methods into both broader beaverrelated tools and catchment scale hydrological models.

Publication Title

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences

Issue

352

Format

application/pdf

Language

en

DOI of Published Version

10.5194/hess-2016-352

Publisher

Copernicus Publications

Rights

Copyright © the Author(s)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Comments

This work was published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences doi:10.5194/hess-2016-352

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