A simplified two‐station approach for modeling metabolism in dam tailwaters subject to diel flow variation

Abstract Tailwaters are ubiquitous and highly managed ecosystems whose food webs often rely disproportionately on autochthonous energy. In situ continuous dissolved oxygen data are increasingly being used to estimate gross primary productivity and ecosystem respiration in rivers, but this approach is complicated in tailwaters, where upriver discontinuities (i.e., dams) violate commonly employed one‐station approaches. In such cases, two‐station metabolism models can be applied, although substantial diel variation in flow (a common outcome of hydropower production) requires more complex treatment of water parcel travel times. Here, we present a new two‐station metabolism model that allows estimation of reach‐scale gross primary productivity and ecosystem respiration in streams and rivers that experience within‐day variation in flow. Our approach simplifies two‐station variable flow model implementation compared to previous efforts. We apply our model to a 6‐yr dissolved oxygen time series and use Bayesian inference to estimate daily gross primary productivity, ecosystem respiration, and gas exchange velocity ( k 600 ) for a ~12‐km reach of the Colorado River downriver of Glen Canyon Dam. We compare our model's performance to a more mechanistically detailed and computationally intensive Eulerian dynamic flow model and also to a widely‐used one‐station model that uses assumptions of reach uniformity that are often strongly violated in tailwaters. These comparisons show that our metabolism estimates conform with output from the more detailed dynamic flow model and that the one‐station approach deviates substantially from both two‐station approaches. Our new stream metabolism model can help resolve a fundamental analytical impediment in tailwater ecology.