Estimation of Soil Water Balance Components Based on Continuous Soil Moisture Measurement and Inversed Richards Method in an Irrigated Agricultural Field of a Desert Oasis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hu Liu ◽  
Yang Yu ◽  
Zhongkai Li ◽  
Wenzhi Zhao ◽  
Qiyue Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Estimation Method ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Soil Water Balance ◽  
Richards Equation ◽  
Water Balance Components ◽  
Sustainable Water Resources Management ◽  
Irrigation Drainage

<p>An accurate assessment of soil water balance components (<em>SWBCs</em>) is necessary for improving irrigation strategies in any water-limited environment. However, quantitative information of <em>SWBCs</em> is usually challenging to obtain, because none of the components (i.e., irrigation, drainage, and evapotranspiration) can be easily measured under actual conditions. Soil moisture is a variable that integrates the water balance components of land surface hydrology, and the evolution of soil moisture is assumed to contain the memory of antecedent hydrologic fluxes, and thus can be used to determine <em>SWBCs</em> from a hydrologic balance. A database of soil moisture measurements from six experimental plots with different treatments in the middle Heihe River Basin of China was used to test the potential of a soil moisture database in estimating the <em>SWBCs</em>. We first compared the hydrophysical properties of the soils in these plots, such as vertical saturated hydraulic conductivity (<em>K</em><sub>s</sub>) and soil water retention features, for supporting the <em>SWBC</em> estimations. Then we determined evapotranspiration and other SWBCs through a method that combined the soil water balance method and the inverse Richards equation (a model of unsaturated soil water flow based on the Richards equation). To test the accuracy of our estimation, we used both indirect methods (such as power consumption of the pumping irrigation well, and published SWBCs values at nearby sites), and the water balance equation technique to verify the estimated <em>SWBCs</em> values, all of which showed a good reliability of our estimation method. Finally, the uncertainties of the proposed methods were analyzed to evaluate the systematic error of the <em>SWBC</em> estimation and any restrictions on its application. The results showed significant variances among the film-mulched plots in both the cumulative irrigation volumes (652.1~ 867.3 mm) and deep drainages (170.7~364.7 mm). Moreover, the unmulched plot had remarkably higher values in both cumulative irrigation volumes (1186.5 mm) and deep drainages (651.8 mm) compared with the mulched plots. Obvious correlation existed between the volume of irrigation and that of drained water. However, the ET demands for all the plots behaved pretty much the same, with the cumulative ET values ranging between 489.1 and 561.9 mm for the different treatments in 2016, suggesting that the superfluous irrigation amounts had limited influence on the accumulated ET throughout the growing season because of the poor water-holding capacity of the sandy soil. This work confirmed that relatively reasonable estimations of the <em>SWBCs</em> in coarse-textured sandy soils can be derived by using soil moisture measurements; the proposed methods provided a reliable solution over the entire growing season and showed a great potential for identifying appropriate irrigation amounts and frequencies, and thus a move toward sustainable water resources management, even under traditional surface irrigation conditions.</p>

scholarly journals Quantification of soil water balance components based on continuous soil moisture measurement and the Richards equation in an irrigated agricultural field of a desert oasis

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (11) ◽  
pp. 4685-4706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongkai Li ◽  
Hu Liu ◽  
Wenzhi Zhao ◽  
Qiyue Yang ◽  
Rong Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Estimation Method ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Soil Water Balance ◽  
Richards Equation ◽  
Water Balance Components ◽  
Sustainable Water Resources Management ◽  
Irrigation Drainage

Abstract. An accurate assessment of soil water balance components (SWBCs) is necessary for improving irrigation strategies in any water-limited environment. However, quantitative information on SWBCs is usually challenging to obtain, because none of the components (i.e., irrigation, drainage, and evapotranspiration) can be easily measured under actual conditions. Soil moisture is a variable that integrates the water balance components of land surface hydrology, and the evolution of soil moisture is assumed to contain the memory of antecedent hydrologic fluxes, and can thus be used to determine SWBCs from a hydrologic balance. A database of soil moisture measurements from six experimental plots with different treatments in the middle Heihe River basin of China was used to test the potential of a such a database for estimating SWBCs. We first compared the hydrophysical properties of the soils in these plots, such as vertical saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) and soil water retention features, for supporting SWBC estimations. We then determined evapotranspiration and other SWBCs using a method that combined the soil water balance method and the inverse Richards equation (a model of unsaturated soil water flow based on the Richards equation). To test the accuracy of our estimation, we used both indirect methods (such as power consumption of the pumping irrigation well and published SWBCs values at nearby sites) and the water balance equation technique to verify the estimated SWBCs values, all of which showed good reliability with respect to our estimation method. Finally, the uncertainties of the proposed methods were analyzed to evaluate the systematic error of the SWBC estimation and any restrictions regarding its application. The results showed significant variances among the film-mulched plots in both the cumulative irrigation volumes (652.1–867.3 mm) and deep drainages (170.7–364.7 mm). Moreover, the un-mulched plot had remarkably higher values in both cumulative irrigation volumes (1186.5 mm) and deep drainages (651.8 mm) compared with the mulched plots. Obvious correlation existed between the volume of irrigation and that of drained water. However, the ET demands for all of the plots behaved pretty much the same, with the cumulative ET values ranging between 489.1 and 561.9 mm for the different treatments in 2016, suggesting that the superfluous irrigation amounts had limited influence on the accumulated ET throughout the growing season due to the poor water-holding capacity of the sandy soil. This work confirmed that relatively reasonable estimations of the SWBCs in coarse-textured sandy soils can be derived by using soil moisture measurements; the proposed methods provided a reliable solution over the entire growing season and showed a great potential for identifying appropriate irrigation amounts and frequencies, and thus a move toward sustainable water resources management, even under traditional surface irrigation conditions.

scholarly journals Estimation of Evapotranspiration and Other Soil Water Budget Components in an Irrigated Agricultural Field of a Desert Oasis, Using Soil Moisture Measurements

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongkai Li ◽  
Hu Liu ◽  
Wenzhi Zhao ◽  
Qiyue Yang ◽  
Rong Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Budget ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Richards Equation ◽  
Heihe River ◽  
Hydrological Process ◽  
Sustainable Water Resources Management ◽  
Desert Oasis

Abstract. An accurate assessment of soil water budget components (SWBCs) is necessary for improving irrigation strategies in any water-limited environment. However, quantitative information of SWBCs is usually challenging to obtain, because, since the hydrological process of farmland is principally driven by irrigation (I), drainage (D), and evapotranspiration (ET) in desert oasis settings, none of the drivers can be easily measured under actual conditions. Soil moisture is a variable that integrates the water balance components of land surface hydrology, and the evolution of soil moisture is assumed to contain the memory of antecedent hydrologic fluxes, and thus can be used to determine SWBCs from a hydrologic balance. A database of soil moisture measurements from six experimental plots with different treatments (NT1 to NT6) in the middle Heihe River Basin of China was used to test the potential of a soil moisture database in estimating the SWBCs. We first compared the hydrophysical properties of the soils in these plots, such as vertical saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) and soil water retention features, for supporting the SWBC estimations. Then we determined evapotranspiration and other SWBCs through a soil-moisture data-based method that combined both the soil water balance method and the inverse Richards equation. To test the accuracy of our estimation, we used both the indirect methods (such as power consumption of the pumping irrigation well), plenty of published SWBCs values at nearby sites, and the water balance equation technique to verify the estimated SWBCs values, all of which showed a good reliability of our estimation. Finally, the uncertainties of the proposed methods were analyzed to evaluate the systematic error of the SWBC estimation and the restriction for its application. The results showed significant variances among the film-mulched plots (NT2–6) in both the cumulative irrigation volumes (between 652.1 mm at NT3 and 867.3 mm at NT6) and deep drainages (between 170.7 mm at NT3 and 364.7 mm at NT6). Moreover, the unmulched plot (NT1) had remarkably higher values in both cumulative irrigation volumes (1186.5 mm) and deep drainages (651.8 mm) compared with the mulched plots. Obvious correlation existed between the volume of irrigation and that of drained water. However, the ET demands for all the plots behaved pretty much the same, with the cumulative ET values ranging between 489.1 and 561.9 mm for the different treatments in 2016, suggesting that the superfluous irrigation amounts had limited influence on the accumulated ET throughout the growing season because of the poor water-holding capacity of the sandy soil. This work confirmed that relatively reasonable estimations of the SWBCs in coarse-textured sandy soils can be derived by using soil moisture measurements; the proposed methods provided a reliable solution during the entire growing season and showed a great potential for identifying appropriate irrigation amounts and frequencies, and thus a move toward sustainable water resources management, even under traditional surface irrigation conditions.

scholarly journals The soil water balance and the development of spring soft wheat under various cultivation technologies

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 723-728 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. I. Belyaev ◽  
M. M. Silanteva ◽  
A. V. Matsyura ◽  
L. V. Sokolova
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Consumption ◽  
Soil Layer ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Vegetation Period ◽  
Soil Water Balance ◽  
Soft Wheat ◽  
Spring Soft Wheat

The steppe zone has always attracted people with its resources, despite the fact that it is a zone of risky agriculture. In this research we discovered that soil water balance under the spring soft wheat was negative most of the time of the vegetation period in the Rebrikhinsky district of the Altai Region, and soil moisture consumption during the observation period depends on the technology options and an average values was in the range from 100.9 mm to 131.9 mm. An average soil moisture consumption was 42.5% of spring moisture reserves. In the plots where autumn soil cultivation was not carried out, the average water consumption for the vegetation period was 41.7% of the spring moisture reserves, while in those plots where it was 43.2%, i.e., only 1.5% more. The absence of both autumn and spring tillage led to the consumption of 38.8% moisture from spring soil moisture reserves during the growing season. In the case when only spring tillage was carried out, this value was 44.7%, and if both cultivations were carried out - 43.2%. The difference in the sowing rates practically did not affect the total moisture consumption from the soil, it amounted to 42.2-42.8% of the spring moisture reserves. The maximum difference in water consumption was found when comparing the equipment used for spring tillage and sowing. So, when using Catros and DMC-9000, respectively, an average of 47.5% of spring moisture reserves was spent during the growing season, while using Russian-made equipment – KPE-3,8 or BDM-6*4 and SZP-3.6А, it was 38.9%. The moisture reserves in the meter soil layer decreased in direct proportion to the increase in average plant height.

scholarly journals Estimation of Evapotranspiration and Other Soil Water Budget Components in an Irrigated Agricultural Field of a Desert Oasis, Using Soil Moisture Measurements

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhongkai Li ◽  
Hu Liu ◽  
Wenzhi Zhao ◽  
Qiyue Yang ◽  
Rong Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Budget ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Heihe River ◽  
Sustainable Water Resources Management ◽  
Arid Northwestern China ◽  
Desert Oasis ◽  
Experimental Plots

Abstract. An accurate assessment of soil water budget components (SWBCs) is necessary for improving irrigation strategies and optimizing the use of fertilizer in any water-limited environment such as the desert oases in arid northwestern China. However, quantitative information of SWBCs is usually challenging to obtain, because, since the water cycle is principally driven by irrigation (I), drainage (D), and evapotranspiration (ET) in desert oasis settings, none of the drivers can be easily measured under actual conditions. Soil moisture is a variable that integrates the water balance components of land surface hydrology, and the evolution of soil moisture is assumed to contain the memory of antecedent hydrologic fluxes, and thus can be used to determine SWBCs from a hydrologic balance. A database of soil moisture measurements from six experimental plots in the middle Heihe River Basin of China (NT1 to NT6, designed to investigate the long-term effects of cropping systems and agronomic manipulation on soil property evolution in the ecotone of desert and oasis) was used to test the potential of a soil moisture database in estimating the SWBCs. The experimental plots were treated as continuous pasture cropping, maize cropping, maize cropping with straw return, maize-maize-pasture rotation, maize-pasture rotation, and maize-pasture intercropping. We first compared the hydrophysical properties of the soils in the plots, including soil bulk density (ρb), vertical saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks), and soil water retention features, and then determined evapotranspiration and other SWBCs through a data-driven method that combined both the soil water balance method and the inverse Richards function. Our results showed that although the tillage and planting of the past decade have significantly increased the soils' water-holding ability, the magnitude of increase in most of the parameters was independent of the treatments applied across the plots. Despite the relatively flat topography and consciously uniform irrigation, significant variances were observed among the plots in both the cumulative irrigation volumes (between 652.1 mm at NT3 and 1186.5 mm at NT1) and deep drainages (between 170.7 mm at NT3 and 651.8 mm at NT1) during the growing season of 2016. Obvious correlation existed between the volume of irrigation and that of drained water. However, the ET demands for all the plots behaved pretty much the same, with the cumulative ET values ranging between 489.1 and 561.9 mm for the different treatments in 2016, suggesting that the irrigation amounts had limited influence on the accumulated ET throughout the growing season. This work also confirmed that relatively reasonable estimations of the SWBCs in a desert oasis environment can be derived by using soil moisture measurements, and the results will provide a great potential for identifying appropriate irrigation amounts and frequencies, and thus move toward sustainable water resources management, even under traditional surface irrigation conditions.

scholarly journals Soil water balance simulated by CROPGRO-Drybean model for edaphoclimatic conditions in Maringá

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rivanildo Dallacort ◽  
Paulo S. L. de Freitas ◽  
Rogério T. de Faria ◽  
Antonio C. A. Gonçalves ◽  
Aleksandra G. Jácome ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Crop Yield ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Soil Water Balance ◽  
State University ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Bean Crop

The performance of the CROPGRO-Drybeans model for the prediction of soil water balance, as well as growth components and bean crop yield, was assessed using data from two field experiments conducted at the State University of Maringá Irrigation Technical Center, Paraná - Brazil, (latitude 23º27'S, longitude 51º57' and altitude 542 m), during the 2005 and 2006 growing season. The model simulations correlated well with measured soil moisture (r > 0.7) for both experiments. However, there were high discrepancies between measured and simulated soil moisture values on the days after rainfall. In addition, it was found that the model exaggerates the effect of water stress during the flowering phase, which leds to underprediction (19 and 29%) of crop yield.

scholarly journals Probabilistic inference of ecohydrological parameters using observations from point to satellite scales

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 3229-3243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maoya Bassiouni ◽  
Chad W. Higgins ◽  
Christopher J. Still ◽  
Stephen P. Good
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Dry Season ◽  
Soil Water Balance ◽  
Rainfall Pattern ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
Soil Moisture Dynamics ◽  
Soil Saturation ◽  
Moisture Dynamics

Abstract. Vegetation controls on soil moisture dynamics are challenging to measure and translate into scale- and site-specific ecohydrological parameters for simple soil water balance models. We hypothesize that empirical probability density functions (pdfs) of relative soil moisture or soil saturation encode sufficient information to determine these ecohydrological parameters. Further, these parameters can be estimated through inverse modeling of the analytical equation for soil saturation pdfs, derived from the commonly used stochastic soil water balance framework. We developed a generalizable Bayesian inference framework to estimate ecohydrological parameters consistent with empirical soil saturation pdfs derived from observations at point, footprint, and satellite scales. We applied the inference method to four sites with different land cover and climate assuming (i) an annual rainfall pattern and (ii) a wet season rainfall pattern with a dry season of negligible rainfall. The Nash–Sutcliffe efficiencies of the analytical model's fit to soil observations ranged from 0.89 to 0.99. The coefficient of variation of posterior parameter distributions ranged from < 1 to 15 %. The parameter identifiability was not significantly improved in the more complex seasonal model; however, small differences in parameter values indicate that the annual model may have absorbed dry season dynamics. Parameter estimates were most constrained for scales and locations at which soil water dynamics are more sensitive to the fitted ecohydrological parameters of interest. In these cases, model inversion converged more slowly but ultimately provided better goodness of fit and lower uncertainty. Results were robust using as few as 100 daily observations randomly sampled from the full records, demonstrating the advantage of analyzing soil saturation pdfs instead of time series to estimate ecohydrological parameters from sparse records. Our work combines modeling and empirical approaches in ecohydrology and provides a simple framework to obtain scale- and site-specific analytical descriptions of soil moisture dynamics consistent with soil moisture observations.

scholarly journals Evaluation of DSSAT soil-water balance module under cropped and bare soil conditions

2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogério Teixeira de Faria ◽  
Walter Truman Bowen
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Water Balance ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Water Flux ◽  
Soil Water Potential ◽  
Bare Soil ◽  
Root Water Uptake ◽  
Soil Water Balance ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Soil Water Flux

The performance of the soil water balance module (SWBM) in the models of DSSAT v3.5 was evaluated against soil moisture data measured in bare soil and dry bean plots, in Paraná, southern Brazil. Under bare soil, the SWBM showed a low performance to simulate soil moisture profiles due to inadequacies of the method used to calculate unsaturated soil water flux. Improved estimates were achieved by modifying the SWBM with the use of Darcy's equation to simulate soil water flux as a function of soil water potential gradient between consecutive soil layers. When used to simulate water balance for the bean crop, the modified SWBM improved soil moisture estimation but underpredicted crop yield. Root water uptake data indicated that assumptions on the original method limited plant water extraction for the soil in the study area. This was corrected by replacing empirical coefficients with measured values of soil hydraulic conductivity at different depths.

Determination of growing season soil water deficits on a forested slope using water balance analysis

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. G. Giles ◽  
T. A. Black ◽  
D. L. Spittlehouse
Keyword(s):  
Water Balance ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Root Zone ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Conifer Forest ◽  
Soil Water Retention ◽  
Water Balance Components ◽  
Water Deficits ◽  
Water Storage Capacity ◽  
Zone Depth

Coefficients for the calculation of soil water balance components at seven sites on a forested slope were determined using only measurements of daily solar irradiance, maximum and minimum air temperature and rainfall, and weekly root zone soil water content during a 2-year period. Site parameters required were root zone depth, soil water retention characteristics, and rainfall interception coefficients. Based on daytime net radiation, the Priestley–Taylor evapotranspiration coefficient (α) was found to be 0.73 ± 0.07, which is similar to values reported in other conifer forest studies. Growing season water deficit increased with decreasing root zone water storage capacity, which was mainly a function of root zone depth. A comparison between high and low elevations on the slope showed 100-year site indices ranging from 17 to 53 m corresponding to growing season soil water deficits during the driest year of the study, ranging from 79 to 4 mm. Basal area annual increments were found to be correlated with soil water deficits and growing season transpiration, both for the study period and when both variables were averaged over the last 18 years.

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