The Water Balance of a Small Pond in the High Arctic

Abstract

Tundra ponds are ubiquitous features in the High Arctic. The water balance of one such pond situated on Ellesmere Island was found to be dependent upon the groundwater supplies from the internally-drained basin in which it was located. For the basin as a whole, evaporation constituted an important component of the water balance, accounting for over 90 per cent of the rainfall over a summer period of less than six weeks. Changes occurring in the quantity of water in the pond in response to rainfall were found to depend upon the degree of saturation of the active layer of the underlying permafrost.