Geology

Geomorphology

Watershed

Biology

Computer science

Climatology

Hydrology (agriculture)

Pothole (geology)

Machine learning

Environmental science

Environmental engineering

Wetland

Hydrological modelling

Surface water

Subsurface flow

Geotechnical engineering

Ecology

Groundwater

Hydrology and earth system sciences

. Hydrologic connectivity among wetlands is poorly characterized and understood. Our inability to quantify this connectivity compromises our understanding of the potential impacts of wetland loss on watershed structure, function and water supplies. We develop a computationally efficient, physically based subsurface–surface hydrologic model to characterize both the subsurface and surface hydrologic connectivity of geographically isolated wetlands and explore the time and length variations in these connections to a river within the Prairie Pothole Region of North America. Despite a high density of geographically isolated wetlands (i.e., wetlands without surface inlets or outlets), modeled connections show that these wetlands are not hydrologically isolated. Subsurface connectivity differs significantly from surface connectivity in terms of timing and length of connections. Slow subsurface connections between wetlands and the downstream river originate from wetlands throughout the watershed, whereas fast surface...

Quantifying hydrologic connectivity of wetlands to surface water systems