Modelling hydrologic and geochemical filtering of reactive solute transport in catchments

We explored how anthropogenic and hydro-climatic forcing controls the dynamics of water and pesticide transport through hillslopes, as reflected in the hydrologic and water-quality measurements in stream networks draining intensively managed agricultural catchments. We adopted two parsimonious modelling approaches to examine the stochastic, episodic transport through hillslopes in response to a series of rainfall events. In both approaches, the hillslopes and the stream network act as a series of nonlinear, hierarchical, dynamic filters, to both delay and attenuate the hydrologic and biogeochemical signals observed in catchments. We used the two modelling approaches to explore the specific coupling of the hydrological and biogeochemical processes, and the role of the antecedent conditions in the observed emergent patterns along the river networks.