Monday, 7 November 2005
5

This presentation is part of: Symposium--Water and Chemical Fluxes from the Pore to Landscape Scale: III

Chloride Mass Balance Errors in Low-Chloride Environments.

Glendon Gee, J. M. Keller, R. J. Serne, W. H. Albright, and D. L. Decker.

Chloride mass balance (CMB) is used routinely to estimate recharge in arid and semi-arid environments. We tested the CMB method in low chloride environments, when pore waters were <5 mg/L, and found significant errors. The resulting recharge estimates were consistently low by factors of 5 or more. In some cases, oven drying was found to increase the estimated pore-water chloride concentrations, possibly due to enhanced mineral release. Where pore water was extracted by centrifugation, anion exclusion increased the chloride concentrations, often by a factor of 5 or more. Precautions are required when using CMB to estimate recharge whenever the chloride concentrations are low and recharge rates are above a few mm per year.

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