The quality of riparian soils and their ability to buffer contaminant releases to aquifers and streams are connected intimately to moisture content and nutrient dynamics, in particular of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N). A multi-compartment model-named the Riparian Soil Model (RSM)-was developed to help investigate the influence and importance of environmental parameters, climatic factors and manag...

Global surface soil moisture products are derived from passive L-band microwave satellite observations. The applied retrieval algorithms include dielectric models (relating soil water content to relative permittivity) developed for mineral soils. First efforts to generate equivalent models for areas where organic surface layers are present such as in the high-latitude regions have recently been...

The energy balance of groundwater flow developed by Oosterbaan, Boonstra and Rao (1994), and used for the groundwater flow in unconfined aquifers, is applied to subsurface drainage by pipes or ditches with the possibility to introduce entrance resistance and/or (layered) soils with anisotropic hydraulic conductivities. Owing to the energy associated with the recharge by downward percolating wat...

Remote sensing and crop growth models have enhanced our ability to understand soil water balance in irrigated agriculture. However, limited efforts have been made to adopt data assimilation methodologies in these linked models that use stochastic parameter estimation with genetic algorithm (GA) to improve irrigation scheduling. In this study, an innovative irrigation scheduling technique, based...

Agricultural irrigation in the middle reaches of the Heihe River Basin consumes approximately 80% of the total river water. Whether the irrigation depth matches the water uptake depth of crops is one of the most important factors affecting the efficiency of irrigation water use. Our results indicated that the influence of plastic film on soil water δ(18)O was restricted to 0-30 cm soil depth. B...

Estimation of water yield and water balance in a river catchment is critical to the sustainable management of water resources at watershed level in any country. Therefore, in the present study, Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) interfaced with Geographical Information System (GIS) was applied as a tool to predict water balance and water yield of a catchment area in Nigeria. The catchment ar...

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, coupled to a GIS, was applied to the Naivasha basin in Kenya, a closed basin experiencing diverse climatic conditions from semi arid to humid, comprises with the only fresh water lake in the grate rift valley. The intent of this study was to estimates the lake water level fluctuations by integrating the SWAT with a water balance model, estimating...

Different techniques for estimating seasonal water use from soil profile water depletion frequently do not account for flux below the root zone. Shallow water table contribution to supply crop water use may be important in arid and semi-arid regions. Development of predictive root uptake models, under influence of shallow water table makes it possible for planners to incorporate interaction bet...

The effects of two water regimes (well-watered condition or drought stress) on root length,root surface area and root volume were tested on two peanut genotypes (the drought-resistantvariety HuaYu 22 (HY22) and the drought-sensitive variety HuaYu 23 (HY23)), measured 101days after sowing. The roots were sampled from the upper (0–40 cm) and deeper (40–100 cm)soil layers. Root diameter was measur...