EcoSLIM

EcoSLIM

A Lagrangian particle-tracking model designed to operate with integrated hydrologic models.(Reed M. Maxwell et al., 2018) Particles are initialized in the subsurface or added at the surface via precipitation fluxes. Spatially gridded velocity, pressure, and saturation fields are used to move particles through the domain and particles can exit via overland flow or evapotranspiration. In addition to steady-state simulations, EcoSLIM can also use transient model outputs to develop time-varying residence-time distributions. The incorporation of precipitation sources from the land-surface model also allows for the direct evaluation of source water contribution (e.g., rain versus snow). EcoSLIM has been demonstrated using outputs from the ParFlow-CLM hydrologic model; however, the model can easily be combined with other hydrologic tools that generate similar gridded outputs. In proof-of-concept simulations, EcoSLIM has been used to explore spatial variability in plant water sources (i.e., old vs. young water), connections between plan rooting depth and ET residence-time distributions, and seasonal variability in residence-time distributions and source water partitioning.(Reed M. Maxwell et al., 2018)