Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 735–753, 2021 https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-735-2021 © Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Environmental DNA simultaneously informs hydrological and biodiversity characterization of an Alpine catchment Elvira Mächler1,2, Anham Salyani3, Jean-Claude Walser4, Annegret Larsen3,5, Bettina Schaefli3,6,7, Florian Altermatt1,2, and Natalie Ceperley3,6,7 1Eawag: Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department of Aquatic Ecology, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland 2Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland 3Faculty of Geosciences and Environment, Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, University of Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland 4Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich, Genetic Diversity Centre, CHN E 55 Universitätstrasse 16, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland 5Soil Geography and Landscape Group, Wageningen University, Droevendaalsesteeg 3, 6708 PB Wageningen, the Netherlands 6Geography Institute, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland 7Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Switzerland Correspondence: Elvira Mächler (
[email protected]) and Natalie Ceperley (
[email protected]) Received: 23 September 2020 – Discussion started: 7 October 2020 Revised: 24 December 2020 – Accepted: 29 December 2020 – Published: 18 February 2021 Abstract. Alpine streams are particularly valuable for down- conveyed by naturally occurring hydrologic tracers. Between stream water resources and of high ecological relevance; March and September 2017, we sampled water at multiple however, a detailed understanding of water storage and re- time points at 10 sites distributed over the 13.4 km2 Vallon lease in such heterogeneous environments is often still lack- de Nant catchment (Switzerland).