Temporal stability of soil water content as affected by climate and soil hydraulic properties: a simulation study |
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| Authors: | Gonzalo Martínez Yakov A Pachepsky Harry Vereecken |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Agronomy, University of Cordoba, Cordoba, Spain;2. USDA‐ARS‐ Environmental Microbial and Food Safety Lab, Beltsville, MD, USA;3. Agrosphere (IBG‐3), Institute of Bio‐ and Geosciences, Jülich, Germany |
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| Abstract: | Temporal stability of soil water content (TS SWC) is an often‐observed phenomenon, which characterization finds multiple applications. Climate and variability in soil properties are usually mentioned as factors of TS SWC, but their effects are far from clear. The objective of this work was to use SWC modeling to evaluate the effects of climate and soil hydraulic properties on the TS of soil water at different measurement schedules. We selected four representative climates found in USA and simulated the multiyear SWC dynamics for sandy loam, loam, and silty clay loam soils, all having the lognormal spatial distribution of the saturated hydraulic conductivity. The CLIMGEN and the HYDRUS6 codes were used to generate weather patterns and to simulate SWC, respectively. Four different methods were applied to select the representative location (RL). The low probability of having the same variability of mean relative differences of soil water under different climates was found in most of the cases. The probability that the variance of mean relative differences depended on sampling frequency was generally higher than 91% for the three soils. The interannual difference in mean relative differences variation from short and intensive summer campaigns was highly probable for all climates and soils. The RLs changed as climate and measurement scheduling changed, and they were less pronounced for coarse‐textured soils. The RL selection methods based solely on bias provided more consistency as compared with other methods. The TS appears to be the result of the interplay between climate, soil properties, and survey protocols. One implication of this factor interaction effect on TS SWC is that a simulation study can be useful to decide on the feasibility of including a search for TS‐based RLs for a specific site. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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| Keywords: | temporal stability soil water content simulations climate water retention saturated hydrauic conductivity |
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