The hydrology of a subarctic patterned wetland

This thesis examines the relationship between the flux and storage of water both within a patterned wetland and between it and adjacent ecosystems. It is hypothesised that patterned wetlands have 2 seasonally characteristic hydrological regimes. During spring the snowmelt water supply exceeds the depression storage capacity of the patterned wetland pools, allowing them to coalesce. This allows the wetland to drain as a single source area, while it receives inputs from adjacent non-wetland portions of the basin. During summer, with loss of water through seepage and evapotranspiration, the patterned wetland becomes hydrologically disconnected into independent microcatchments of individual pools separated by elongated peat ridges. Wetland discharge during summer is characteristically low. Because the connectivity of pools depends on inputs from adjacent non-wetland areas, the adjustment from the disconnected to connected hydrological regime is associated with an increase from wetland to basin scale discharge. It is further hypothesised that patterned wetlands which occupy basin outflows are able to regulate basin discharge. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...