The ability to evaluate stream hydrochemistry is often constrained by the capacity to sample streamwater at an adequate frequency. While technology is no longer a limiting factor, costs and sample management can still be a barrier to high-resolution water quality instrumentation. We propose a new framework for investigating the electrical conductivity (EC) of streamwater, which can be measured continuously through inexpensive sensors. We show that EC embeds information about individual ion content that can be isolated to retrieve solute concentrations at high resolution. The essence of the approach is the decomposition of the EC signal into its “harmonics”, i.e., the specific contributions of the major ions that conduct current in water. The ion contribution is used to explore water quality patterns and to develop algorithms that reconstruct solute concentrations starting from EC during periods where solute measurements are not available. The approach is validated on a hydrochemical data set from Plynlimon, Wales, showing that improved estimates of high-frequency solute dynamics can easily be achieved. Our results support the installation of EC probes to complement water quality campaigns and suggest that the potential of EC measurements in rivers is currently far from being fully exploited.

中文翻译：

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分解流的本体电导率以恢复单个溶质的高频浓度

评价溪流水化学的能力通常受到以足够频率取样溪流水的能力的限制。尽管技术不再是限制因素，但成本和样品管理仍然可能成为高分辨率水质仪器的障碍。我们提出了一个研究流水电导率（EC）的新框架，该框架可以通过廉价的传感器进行连续测量。我们表明，EC嵌入了有关单个离子含量的信息，这些信息可以被隔离以高分辨率检索溶质浓度。该方法的本质是将EC信号分解成其“谐波”，即在水中传导电流的主要离子的特定贡献。离子贡献用于探索水质模式，并开发算法，在无法进行溶质测量的期间，从EC开始重建溶质浓度。该方法已在威尔士Plynlimon的水化学数据集上得到验证，表明可以轻松实现对高频溶质动力学的改进估算。我们的结果支持安装EC探头以补充水质运动，并表明目前在河流中进行EC测量的潜力远未得到充分开发。