Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 5089–5110, 2017 https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-21-5089-2017 © Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Using isotopes to constrain water flux and age estimates in snow-influenced catchments using the STARR (Spatially distributed Tracer-Aided Rainfall–Runoff) model Pertti Ala-aho1, Doerthe Tetzlaff1, James P. McNamara2, Hjalmar Laudon3, and Chris Soulsby1 1Northern Rivers Institute, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen, AB24 3UF, UK 2Department of Geosciences, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725, USA 3Department of Forest, Ecology and Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 90183 Umeå, Sweden Correspondence to: Pertti Ala-aho (
[email protected]) Received: 24 February 2017 – Discussion started: 9 March 2017 Revised: 28 June 2017 – Accepted: 18 August 2017 – Published: 9 October 2017 Abstract. Tracer-aided hydrological models are increasingly water age distributions, which was captured by the model. used to reveal fundamentals of runoff generation processes Our study suggested that snow sublimation fractionation pro- and water travel times in catchments. Modelling studies in- cesses can be important to include in tracer-aided modelling tegrating stable water isotopes as tracers are mostly based for catchments with seasonal snowpack, while the influence in temperate and warm climates, leaving catchments with of fractionation during snowmelt could not be unequivocally strong snow influences underrepresented in the literature. shown. Our work showed the utility of isotopes to provide Such catchments are challenging, as the isotopic tracer sig- a proof of concept for our modelling framework in snow- nals in water entering the catchments as snowmelt are typi- influenced catchments.