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HydrologIcal changes in ArctiC Environments and water-driven biogeochemical FLUXes (ICEtoFLUX)
Call year: 2022
Status: active
IADC_id: 201
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Project description:
Climate change heavily affects Arctic hydrologic dynamics, generating significant environmental modifications and potentially leading to climatic feedbacks and further warming amplification. In formerly glacierized watersheds, hydrologic processes are evolving, with new storage mechanisms and distribution of water resources, as more persistent rivers and developed groundwater system. However, water balance still cannot be considered good enough to assess the individual components of the hydrological cycle with sufficient accuracy, including groundwater, which can play a key role for ecosystems and human communities in Arctic regions. The rapid glacier melting affects weathering processes, resulting in the mobilization-transport of different inorganic and organic molecules (i.e. pollutants), microorganisms stored since long time, turbid meltwaters. Nevertheless, the input of contaminants in Kongsfjorden linked to Bayelva catchment need more studies. To date, the interaction between pollutants and microbial abundances and diversity in Svalbard glaciers remains largely unknown and fragmented. The influence of glacier melting on microbes release and transport from glacier to the fjord needs also to be properly understood. In this framework, detailed and comprehensive research projects are required for gaining insight into the current hydrologic processes, their change trends and the effects they have on land water resources, mobilization of solutes/pollutants, solids ad microbiota into the Arctic fjords and ocean. Thanks to its geographical characteristics, the retreating glaciers, the research stations and infrastructures, and the studies carried out in the past and present, the Bayelva catchment near Ny-Ålesund is an ideal site for surveys aimed at increasing knowledge on hydrology dynamics and associated effects, in the continuum from glaciers to the fjord. The ICEtoFLUX project will deploy a multi-tool approach in this area for contributing to fill the information gaps on Arctic hydrologic processes, and their quantification. The main goal consists in the quantitative characterization of hydrologic processes and related transport of inorganic-organic chemical compounds and microbial biomass, in Arctic. The study will regard the Bayelva catchment, from its glaciers and periglacial/proglacial systems up to the Kongsfjorden zone significantly affected by the river. On-site activities will be performed from the beginning to the end of melting period, in order to: 1) quantify the dynamics of feeding to the proglacial water network, by characterizing, chemically and physically, main water sources (i.e.rainfall and melting water from snowpack and glaciers) and their interaction; 2) investigate presence, extension and evolution of underground water-active layers, both above and below the permafrost, as possible groundwater resource or input to river flow; 3) quantify the mobilization of organic tracers and pollutants, suspended solids and microbial biomass, and their transfer to the fjord; 4) define relationships between meteorological variables and water quantity and quality parameters to provide forecasting on the system evolution. A network of about 45 “water points” has been selected. All previous significant data will be accounted and organized in dataset, a continuous physical-chemical monitoring will be done in selected sites and field activities will be carried out 2 times per year, i.e., end of the snow season and middle-late melting season. During the latter, a daily screening will be also performed in 3 main sections of the Bayelva with cyclic operations to detail the water discharge evolution and physical-chemical-isotopic-biological parameters during different environmental conditions. Data from experimental and modelling activities will allow enhancing knowledge on the changes occurring into the hydrosphere in Polar Regions and the impacts on water resource quantity and quality.
National/International Cooperation:
The partnership consists of two CNR Institutes and two University Departments. The head structure is the Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse (IGG-CNR), the three partners are the Istituto di Scienze Polari (ISP-CNR), the Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Ambiente, del Territorio e delle Infrastrutture-Politecnico di Torino (DIATI) and the Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra e Geoambientali-Università di Bari (DISTeGEO). rnICEtoFLUX is also relevant for, and linked to, several international projects and infrastructures, as follow: i) Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS), which offers to collaborate with scientific and logistic transfer between other SIOS members; ii) NySMAC (the Ny-Ålesund Science Managers Committee), for which ICEtoFLUX could be an important hydrological basis for further ecological researches; iii) the Kongsfjorden System Flagship; iv) the monitoring program carried out by NVE; v) the MOSAIC project (University of Oulu and Alaska Anchorage), for sharing information on Arctic water cycle; vi) the KONBHAS 1223-AWIPEV Program, for interpreting biogeochemical and sedimentary fluxes and the foraminifera development; vii) Dr. W. Berry Lyons group (Ohio State University), for comparing and integrating Arctic and Antarctic biogeochemical data
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