Water fluxes and coupled nitrogen export in a managed prealpine grassland: identifying the effects of climate change and agricultural management

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Schneider ◽  
Ralf Kiese
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Groundwater Recharge ◽  
Elevation Gradient ◽  
Agricultural Management ◽  
Agricultural Practice ◽  
Soil Cores ◽  
Water Fluxes ◽  
Water Balance Components ◽  
Nitrogen Export

<p>It is generally accepted that climate change likely alters the ratio of water balance components in mid-latitude environments. Higher temperatures and an elevated water vapour deficit may increase evapotranspiration rates and reduce groundwater recharge rates. At the same time, agricultural management may interfere these effects, e.g. through reduced plant transpiration rates due to a high cutting frequency.</p><p>The study analyses climate change and agricultural management effects on the water fluxes and coupled nitrogen export in a prealpine grassland. It makes use of the grassland lysimeters, which are part of the TERENO preAlpine observatory in southern Bavaria (Germany). In a “space-for-time” approach, soil cores with an area of 1 m² and a depth of 1.5 m have been excavated and translocated to lower elevations. Furthermore, soil cores from the same area (that have not been translocated to lower elevations) act as control plots in the lysimeter network. The elevation gradient between the highest (864 m a.s.l.) and lowest (695 m a.s.l.) lysimeter station accounts for a temperature increase of approx. 2°C, while precipitation decreases from approx. 1350 mm a<sup>-1</sup> to approx. 960 mm a<sup>-1</sup>. Following local agricultural practice, intensive as well as extensive grassland management is applied at the lysimeters: intensive management refers to a higher frequency of cutting (up to five times per year) and manure application (approx.. 250 kg N ha<sup>-1</sup> a<sup>-1</sup>) than extensive management (two cuts and approx. 80 kg N ha<sup>-1</sup> a<sup>-1</sup>).</p><p>The study compares the effects of temperature and precipitation changes (i.e. elevated temperature and decrease in precipitation) and different agricultural management on water balance components (evapotranspiration, groundwater recharge, Ammonia and Nitrate fluxes) measured at the lysimeters. Preliminary result show that the ratio of evapotranspiration to precipitation increases in the climate change treatment. Water-bound nitrogen fluxes are comparably low on all sites, indicating that nitrogen uptake by plant plants is dominating over nitrogen leaching.</p>

scholarly journals Assessing Variation in Water Balance Components in Mountainous Inland River Basin Experiencing Climate Change

Water ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenliang Yin ◽  
Qi Feng ◽  
Songbing Zou ◽  
Linshan Yang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Water Balance Components ◽  
Inland River ◽  
Inland River Basin

scholarly journals Forecasting land-use change and its impact on the groundwater system of the Kleine Nete catchment, Belgium

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 4265-4295 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Dams ◽  
S. T. Woldeamlak ◽  
O. Batelaan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Groundwater Level ◽  
Balance Model ◽  
Groundwater Model ◽  
Water Balance Components ◽  
Groundwater System ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Land-use change and climate change, along with groundwater pumping are frequently indicated to be the main human-induced factors influencing the groundwater system. Up till now, research has mainly been focusing on the effect of the water quality of these human-induced changes on the groundwater system, often neglecting changes in quantity. The focus in this study is on the impact of land-use changes in the near future, from 2000 until 2020, on the groundwater quantity and the general hydrologic balance of a sub-catchment of the Kleine Nete, Belgium. This study tests a new methodology which involves coupling a land-use change model with a water balance model and a groundwater model. The future land-use is modelled with the CLUE-S model. Four scenarios (A1, A2, B1 and B2) based on the Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) are used for the land-use modelling. Water balance components, groundwater level and baseflow are simulated using the WetSpass model in conjunction with a MODFLOW groundwater model. Results show that the average recharge slowly decreases for all scenarios, the decreases are 2.9, 1.6, 1.8 and 0.8% for respectively scenario A1, A2, B1 and B2. The predicted reduction in recharge results in a small decrease of the average groundwater level, ranging from 2.5 cm for scenario A1 to 0.9 cm for scenario B2, and a reduction of the total baseflow with maximum 2.3% and minimum 0.7% respectively for scenario A1 and B2. Although these average values do not indicate significant changes for the groundwater system, spatial analysis of the changes shows the changes are concentrated in the neighbourhood of the major cities in the study areas. It is therefore important for spatial managers to take the groundwater system into account for reducing the negative impacts of land-use and climate change as much as possible.

scholarly journals Water Balance Estimation Using Integrated GIS-Based WetSpass Model in the Birki Watershed, Eastern Tigray, Northern Ethiopia

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Esayas Meresa ◽  
Abbadi Girmay ◽  
Amare Gebremedhin
Keyword(s):  
Water Balance ◽  
Groundwater Recharge ◽  
Surface Runoff ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Mean Value ◽  
Mean Annual Precipitation ◽  
Northern Ethiopia ◽  
Water Balance Components ◽  
Wetspass Model

This study aims to estimate long-term average annual and seasonal water balance components for Birki watershed using WetSpass model with the integrated geospatial modeling approach with ten years’ hydro-meteorological and biophysical data of the watershed. Both primary and secondary data were collected using both field survey and disk-based data collection methods. The WetSpass model was used for data analysis purposes. The finding showed that in the summer season the annual groundwater recharge is 24.1 mm year-1 (96.5%), winter season mean groundwater recharge is 0.8 mm year-1 (3.5%) and yearly mean groundwater recharge is 24.9 mm year-1, Surface runoff yearly mean value is 40.6 mm year-1, Soil evaporation yearly mean value is 10.8 mm year-1, Evapotranspiration yearly mean value is 60.8 mm year-1, Intersection loss yearly mean value is 17 mm year-1, and Transpiration loss yearly value is 6.8 mm year-1 in the entire watershed. The mean annual precipitation, which is 573 mm, is contributed to 7.4%, 7.1% and 85.5% recharge to the groundwater, to surface runoff, and evapotranspiration, respectively. Annually 1.1205 million m3 water recharges into the groundwater table as recharge from the precipitation on the entire watershed. The contribution of this study could be used as baseline information for regional water resource experts, policy makers and researchers for further investigation. It can also be concluded that integrated WetSpass and GIS-based models are good indicators for estimating and understanding of water balance components in a given watershed to implement an integrated watershed management plan for sustainable utilization and sustainable development.

scholarly journals Trends and variability of water balance components over a tropical savanna and Eucalyptus forest in Australia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yinhong Kang ◽  
Lu Zhang ◽  
Warrick Dawes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Water Content ◽  
Soil Water Content ◽  
Potential Evapotranspiration ◽  
Annual Runoff ◽  
Water Balance Components ◽  
Eucalyptus Forest ◽  
The Waves

Abstract In this paper, the long-term dynamics of water balance components in two different contrasting ecosystems in Australia were simulated with an ecohydrological model (WAter Vegetation Energy and Solute modelling (WAVES)) over the period 1950–2015. The selected two ecosystems are woodland savanna in Daly River and Eucalyptus forest in Tumbarumba. The WAVES model was first manually calibrated and validated against soil water content measured by cosmic-ray probe and evapotranspiration measured with eddy flux techniques. The calibrated model was then used to simulate long-term water balance components with observed climate data at two sites. Analyzing the trends and variabilities of potential evapotranspiration and precipitation is used to interpret the climate change impacts on ecosystem water balance. The results showed that the WAVES model can accurately simulate soil water content and evapotranspiration at two study sites. Over the period of 1950–2015, annual evapotranspiration at both sites showed decreasing trends (−1.988 mm year−1 in Daly and −0.381 mm year−1 in Tumbarumba), whereas annual runoff in Daly increased significantly (5.870 mm year−1) and decreased in Tumbarumba (–0.886 mm year−1). It can be concluded that the annual runoff trends are consistent with the rainfall trends, whereas trends in annual evapotranspiration are influenced by both rainfall and potential evapotranspiration. The results can provide evidence for controlling the impacting factors for different ecosystems under climate change.

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