In order to make the prediction of land surface heat fluxes more robust, two improvements were made to an operational two-layer model proposed previously by Zhang. These improvements are: 1) a surface energy balance method is used to determine the theoretical boundary lines (namely 'true wet/cool edge' and 'true dry/warm edge' in the trapezoid) in the scatter plot for the surface temperature ve...

Few studies have evaluated land surface models for African ecosystems. Here we evaluate the Organizing Carbon and Hydrology in Dynamic Ecosystems (ORCHIDEE) process-based model for the interannual variability (IAV) of the fraction of absorbed active radiation, the gross primary productivity (GPP), soil moisture, and evapotranspiration (ET). Two ORCHIDEE versions are tested, which differ by thei...

[1] An important factor controlling catchment-scale water balance is the seasonal variation of climate. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of the seasonal distributions of water and energy, and their interactions with the soil moisture store, on mean annual water balance in Australia at catchment scales using a stochastic model of soil moisture balance with seasonally varying fo...

Agricultural producers require knowledge of soil water at plant rooting depths,while many remote sensing studies have focused on surface soil water or mechanisticmodels that are not easily parameterized. We developed site-specific empirical models topredict spring soil water content for two Montana ranches. Calibration data sample sizeswere based on the estimated variability of soil water and t...

Land aridity has been projected to increase with global warming. Such projections are mostly based on off-line aridity and drought metrics applied to climate model outputs but also are supported by climate-model projections of decreased surface soil moisture. Here we comprehensively analyze soil moisture projections from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5, including surface, tota...

A field crop irrigation management decision-making system (CropIrri) was developed based on the soil water balance model, crop phenology model, root growth model, crop water production function, and irrigation management model. The irrigation plan is made through predicating of soil water content in root zone and daily crop water requirement using historical and forecasting weather data, measur...

A simple conceptual water balance model representing the streamflow generation processes on a daily time step following land use change is presented. The model consists of five stores: (i) Dry, Wet and Subsurface Stores for vertical and lateral water flow, (ii) a transient Stream zone Store (iii) a saturated Goundwater Store. The soil moisture balance in the top soil Dry and Wet Stores are the ...

Soil and epikarst play an important role in the hydrological cycle in karst regions. This paper focuses on investigating the seasonal recharge and mean residence time (MRT) of soil water and epikarst water in a small karst catchment of southwest China. The deuterium contents in precipitation, creek, soil baseflow (direct recharge of the saturated soil water to the stream), epikarst spring, and ...

This paper presents the laboratory test results of vertical infiltration on two soil columns of finer over coarser soils subject to simulated rainfalls under conditions of no-ponding at the surface and constant head at the bottom. The main objectives were to evaluate the effect of rainfall intensity and duration; and to provide experimental evidence for soil water redistribution and hysteresis....