Observatory Design:

1. Intensive Research Sites in Major Ecosystem Types
   • New process knowledge
   • Develop a physically based understanding of eco-hydrological processes at the plot-to-hillslope scale
     • Incoming Precipitation as Rain/ Snow
     • Partitioning of Precipitation into Infiltration, Runoff, and Recharge
     • Vegetation Water Use/ Plant Physiological Ecology
     • Atmosphere-Land Surface H2O, CO2, and Energy Balance
     • Groundwater

2. Distributed Data Collection
   • Spatial and temporal variability in processes
     • Continuous Data Collection
       (high temporal resolution)
       
       • Met stations
       • SNOTEL
       • Ultrasonic Snow depth
       • Scintillometer
     • Event specific
       (high spatial resolution)
       
       • Remote sensing
       • Soil moisture surveys
       • Snow surveys
       • Groundwater sampling
       • Biogeochemical sampling
   • Obtain intensive, coordinated observations of these processes in major vegetation, ecosystem, and landcover types
3. Nested Catchments
   • Integrated measures of "upstream" processes
     • Continuous - Discharge Metrological data Groundwater levels
     • Event specific - Geochemical tracers Isotopic tracers Biogeochemistry
4. Identify physically-based methods to parameterize these processes at the landscape-to-basin scale

5. Experimental Manipulations
   • Address specific unknowns
     • The effects of fire on stream water sources
       Controlled burn October 2005
     • The effects of forest thinning on vegetation water use
       Funded by VCNP to Nate McDowell (LANL)
6. Fine Resolution Model Development
   • Combining knowledge into predictive model;
   • Accurately incorporate the important hydrometeorological, physiographic, and physiological interrelationships in a distributed hydrologic watershed model