Modelling the spatial variation in soil moisture at the landscape scale: an application to five areas of ecological interest in the UK |
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| Authors: | P S Naden E M Blyth P Broadhurst C D Watts I R Wright |
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| Abstract: | A simple conceptual hydrological model that explicitly includes the lateral movement of soil water and operates efficiently at the landscape scale is outlined. It is applied to five areas of ecological interest in the UK to provide distributed mean monthly soil moisture on a 50 m grid. As the model's driving variables—daily rainfall and potential evapotranspiration—are assumed constant over each of the tracts of land, the variability in soil moisture is due to different soil types and to topographic effects. Box plots of the mean monthly simulated soil moisture clearly show the spread of values occasioned by modelling the lateral water movement down the hillslope. The general magnitude of the results are compared with published data wherever possible and there is some discussion of the form of the curve used in the model to describe the attenuation of evapotranspiration with decreasing soil moisture. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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| Keywords: | soil moisture hydrological modelling spatial variation evapotranspiration |
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