Review manuscript on water ages in the critical zone accepted in Reviews of Geophysics

Looking at the demographics of water in the critical zone.

The literature in hydrological science on how long a rain drop takes to pass through the soil, may be taken up by trees, end up back in the atmosphere via evaporation, or recharge the groundwater and streams is ever growing (see graph below).
In our accepted manuscript on "The demographics of water: A review of water ages in the critical zone", we provide an overview on the current developments and open questions in this vibrant field dealing with water ages to improve the understanding of flow paths. This manuscript evolved from a workshop on “Water Ages in the Hydrological Cycle” held in October 2017 in the Black Forest funded by the Wassernetzwerk Baden-Württemberg. Back then, we discussed for about three days our experiences, new thoughts and challenges in estimating water ages in the terrestrial water cycle. 

---

Participants of the workshop on "Water Ages in the Hydrological Cycle". Discussions at this workshop initiated the review paper.

Our interdisciplinary group of scientists brought together various aspects that appear to be relevant for a better understanding and would be worth looking into in the future. This review manuscript is the result of these discussions at the workshop and via emails afterwards.​ ​It has been a great experience to work with that many bright scientists and put different views based on different backgrounds together. ​The collaborative and supportive atmosphere within the group of co-authors were extremely motivating and a great example for the success of interdisciplinary work. Thanks to the Wassernetzwerk Baden-Württemberg and the DFG for the financial support to work on this manuscript. You can download the accepted manuscript here.

---

Annual numbers of publications (orange line) with either "Travel times" or "Transit times" or "Water age" or "Residence times") in their title or keywords published in the journals “Water Resources Research”, “Journal of Hydrology” or “Hydrological Processes”. Horizontal lines indicate the average values over the indicated decade. Numbers of publication are also given in relation to the total number of publications in the considered journals (blue line, given in %). (Figure is not part of the review manuscript.)