Articles | Volume 22, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-2881-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-2881-2018
Research article
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15 May 2018
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 15 May 2018

Effects of climatic seasonality on the isotopic composition of evaporating soil waters

Paolo Benettin, Till H. M. Volkmann, Jana von Freyberg, Jay Frentress, Daniele Penna, Todd E. Dawson, and James W. Kirchner

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ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (17 Apr 2018) by Markus Hrachowitz
AR by Paolo Benettin on behalf of the Authors (24 Apr 2018)  Author's response   Manuscript 
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Short summary
Evaporation causes the isotopic composition of soil water to become different from that of the original precipitation source. If multiple samples originating from the same source are available, they can be used to reconstruct the original source composition. However, soil water is influenced by seasonal variability in both precipitation sources and evaporation patterns. We show that this variability, if not accounted for, can lead to biased estimates of the precipitation source water.