BioRT-HBV 1.0: A Biogeochemical Reactive Transport Model at the Watershed Scale

Abstract

Reactive Transport Models (RTMs) are essential tools for understanding and predicting intertwined ecohydrological and biogeochemical processes on land and in rivers. While traditional RTMs have focused primarily on subsurface processes, recent watershed-scale RTMs have integrated ecohydrological and biogeochemical interactions between surface and subsurface. These emergent, watershed-scale RTMs are often spatially explicit and require extensive data, computational power, and computational expertise. There is however a pressing need to create parsimonious models that require minimal data and are accessible to scientists with limited computational background. To that end, we have developed BioRT-HBV 1.0, a watershed-scale, hydro-biogeochemical RTM that builds upon the widely used, bucket-type HBV model known for its simplicity and minimal data requirements. BioRT-HBV uses the conceptual structure and hydrology output of HBV to simulate processes including advective solute transport and biogeochemical reactions that depend on reaction thermodynamics and kinetics. These reactions include, for example, chemical weathering, soil respiration, and nutrient transformation. The model uses time series of weather (air temperature, precipitation, and potential evapotranspiration) and initial biogeochemical conditions of subsurface water, soils, and rocks as input, and output times series of reaction rates and solute concentrations in subsurface waters and rivers. This paper presents the model structure and governing equations and demonstrates its utility with examples simulating carbon and nitrogen processes in a headwater catchment. As shown in the examples, BioRT-HBV can be used to illuminate the dynamics of biogeochemical reactions in the invisible, arduous-to-measure subsurface, and their influence on the observed stream or river chemistry and solute export. With its parsimonious structure and easy-to-use graphical user interface, BioRT-HBV can be a useful research tool for users without in-depth computational training. It can additionally serve as an educational tool that promotes pollination of ideas across disciplines and foster a diverse, equal, and inclusive user community.

Keywords: biogeochemistry; carbon; hydrology; nutrient processes; reactive transport modeling; water quality.