A macroscopic soil-water transport model to simulate root water uptake in the presence of water and disease stress

2020 ◽  
Vol 587 ◽  
pp. 124940 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srinivasa Rao Peddinti ◽  
B.V.N.P. Kambhammettu ◽  
Ranjith S Lad ◽  
Jiří Šimůnek ◽  
R.M. Gade ◽  
...  
1989 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 415 ◽  
Author(s):  
CR Jensen ◽  
IE Henson ◽  
NC Turner

Plants of Lupinus cosentinii Guss. cv. Eregulla were grown in a sandy soil in large containers in a glasshouse and exposed to drought by withholding water. Under these conditions stomatal closure had previously been shown to be initiated before a significant reduction in leaf water potential was detected. In the experiments reported here, no significant changes were found in water potential or turgor pressure of roots or leaves when a small reduction in soil water potential was induced which led to a 60% reduction in leaf conductance. The decrease in leaf conductance and root water uptake closely paralleled the fraction of roots in wet soil. By applying observed data of soil water and root characteristics, and root water uptake for whole pots in a single-root model, the average water potential at the root surface was calculated. Potential differences for water transport in the soil-plant system, and the resistances to water flow were estimated using the 'Ohm's Law' analogy for water transport. Soil resistance was negligible or minor, whereas the root resistance accounted for 61-72% and the shoot resistance accounted for about 30% of the total resistance. The validity of the measurements and calculations is discussed and the possible role of root- to-shoot communication raised.


2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (No. 3) ◽  
pp. 85-98
Author(s):  
Dohnal Michal ◽  
Dušek Jaromír ◽  
Vogel Tomáš ◽  
Herza Jiří

This paper focuses on numerical modelling of soil water movement in response to the root water uptake that is driven by transpiration. The flow of water in a lysimeter, installed at a grass covered hillslope site in a small headwater catchment, is analysed by means of numerical simulation. The lysimeter system provides a well defined control volume with boundary fluxes measured and soil water pressure continuously monitored. The evapotranspiration intensity is estimated by the Penman-Monteith method and compared with the measured lysimeter soil water loss and the simulated root water uptake. Variably saturated flow of water in the lysimeter is simulated using one-dimensional dual-permeability model based on the numerical solution of the Richards’ equation. The availability of water for the root water uptake is determined by the evaluation of the plant water stress function, integrated in the soil water flow model. Different lower boundary conditions are tested to compare the soil water dynamics inside and outside the lysimeter. Special attention is paid to the possible influence of the preferential flow effects on the lysimeter soil water balance. The adopted modelling approach provides a useful and flexible framework for numerical analysis of soil water dynamics in response to the plant transpiration.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fairouz Slama ◽  
Nessrine Zemni ◽  
Fethi Bouksila ◽  
Roberto De Mascellis ◽  
Rachida Bouhlila

Water scarcity and quality degradation represent real threats to economic, social, and environmental development of arid and semi-arid regions. Drip irrigation associated to Deficit Irrigation (DI) has been investigated as a water saving technique. Yet its environmental impacts on soil and groundwater need to be gone into in depth especially when using brackish irrigation water. Soil water content and salinity were monitored in a fully drip irrigated potato plot with brackish water (4.45 dSm−1) in semi-arid Tunisia. The HYDRUS-1D model was used to investigate the effects of different irrigation regimes (deficit irrigation (T1R, 70% ETc), full irrigation (T2R, 100% ETc), and farmer’s schedule (T3R, 237% ETc) on root water uptake, root zone salinity, and solute return flows to groundwater. The simulated values of soil water content (θ) and electrical conductivity of soil solution (ECsw) were in good agreement with the observation values, as indicated by mean RMSE values (≤0.008 m3·m−3, and ≤0.28 dSm−1 for soil water content and ECsw respectively). The results of the different simulation treatments showed that relative yield accounted for 54%, 70%, and 85.5% of the potential maximal value when both water and solute stress were considered for deficit, full. and farmer’s irrigation, respectively. Root zone salinity was the lowest and root water uptake was the same with and without solute stress for the treatment corresponding to the farmer’s irrigation schedule (273% ETc). Solute return flows reaching the groundwater were the highest for T3R after two subsequent rainfall seasons. Beyond the water efficiency of DI with brackish water, long term studies need to focus on its impact on soil and groundwater salinization risks under changing climate conditions.


Soil Science ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 169 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiang Zuo ◽  
Lei Meng ◽  
Renduo Zhang

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Vanderborght ◽  
Valentin Couvreur ◽  
Felicien Meunier ◽  
Andrea Schnepf ◽  
Harry Vereecken ◽  
...  

<p>Plant water uptake from soil is an important component of terrestrial water cycle with strong links to the carbon cycle and the land surface energy budget. To simulate the relation between soil water content, root distribution, and root water uptake, models should represent the hydraulics of the soil-root system and describe the flow from the soil towards root segments and within the 3D root system architecture according to hydraulic principles. We have recently demonstrated how macroscopic relations that describe the lumped water uptake by all root segments in a certain soil volume, e.g. in a thin horizontal soil layer in which soil water potentials are uniform, can be derived from the hydraulic properties of the 3D root architecture. The flow equations within the root system can be scaled up exactly and the total root water uptake from a soil volume depends on only two macroscopic characteristics of the root system: the root system conductance, K<sub>rs</sub>, and the uptake distribution from the soil when soil water potentials in the soil are uniform, <strong>SUF</strong>. When a simple root hydraulic architecture was assumed, these two characteristics were sufficient to describe root water uptake from profiles with a non-uniform water distribution. This simplification gave accurate results when root characteristics were calculated directly from the root hydraulic architecture. In a next step, we investigate how the resistance to flow in the soil surrounding the root can be considered in a macroscopic root water uptake model. We specifically investigate whether the macroscopic representation of the flow in the root architecture, which predicts an effective xylem water potential at a certain soil depth, can be coupled with a model that describes the transfer from the soil to the root using a simplified representation of the root distribution in a certain soil layer, i.e. assuming a uniform root distribution.</p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 3441-3454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anke Hildebrandt ◽  
Axel Kleidon ◽  
Marcel Bechmann

Abstract. By extracting bound water from the soil and lifting it to the canopy, root systems of vegetation perform work. Here we describe how root water uptake can be evaluated thermodynamically and demonstrate that this evaluation provides additional insights into the factors that impede root water uptake. We derive an expression that relates the energy export at the base of the root system to a sum of terms that reflect all fluxes and storage changes along the flow path in thermodynamic terms. We illustrate this thermodynamic formulation using an idealized setup of scenarios with a simple model. In these scenarios, we demonstrate why heterogeneity in soil water distribution and rooting properties affect the impediment of water flow even though the mean soil water content and rooting properties are the same across the scenarios. The effects of heterogeneity can clearly be identified in the thermodynamics of the system in terms of differences in dissipative losses and hydraulic energy, resulting in an earlier start of water limitation in the drying cycle. We conclude that this thermodynamic evaluation of root water uptake conveniently provides insights into the impediments of different processes along the entire flow path, which goes beyond resistances and also accounts for the role of heterogeneity in soil water distribution.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document