scholarly journals Numerical Analysis of Soil Water Dynamics during Spinach Cultivation in a Soil Column with an Artificial Capillary Barrier under Different Irrigation Managements

Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 2176
Author(s):  
Davy Sao ◽  
Hirotaka Saito ◽  
Tasuku Kato ◽  
Jirka Šimůnek

Artificial capillary barriers (CBs) are used to improve root zone conditions as they can keep water and nutrients in the root zone by limiting downward percolation. Numerical analysis is one of the promising tools for evaluating CB systems’ performance during the cultivation of leafy vegetables. This study aims to investigate the effects of the CB system on soil water dynamics during spinach cultivation in a soil column under different irrigation scenarios using HYDRUS (2D/3D) by comparing uniform (UNI), line-source (LSI), and plant-targeted (PTI) irrigations combined with alternative irrigation schedules. Simulation results of volumetric soil water contents were generally corresponding to measured data. Simulation results with various hypothetical irrigation scenarios exhibited that the CB was an effective system to diminish percolation losses and improve the root zone’s soil water storage capacity. On the other hand, evaporation loss can be increased as more water is maintained near the surface. While this loss can be significantly minimized by reducing the water application area, the irrigation amount must be carefully defined because applying water in a smaller area may accelerate downward water movement so that the water content at the CB interface can reach close to saturation. In addition to the malfunction of the CB layer, it may also cause a reduction of plant root water uptake (RWU) because the root zone is too wet. Among evaluated irrigation scenarios, irrigating every two days with PTI was the best scenario for the spinach as water use efficiency was greatly improved.

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
JOY K DEY ◽  
LALA IP RAY ◽  
Y. MARWEIN

Availability of in-situ soil water plays a major role in exploiting the potential yield of crops under irrigated conditions. Depending on type of irrigation, variations of soil water is mostly observed at different soil depths within the root zone. The deviation of soil water at the edaphic zone becomes a deciding factor in assuring optimum yield. As availability of irrigation water is a great concern during non-rainy season, water saving irrigation techniques need to be adopted to maximize the productivity under hilly terrain. An experiment was laid out with potato as a test crop under the valley region of Meghalaya plateau on sandy clayey soil to study in-situ soil water dynamics under three different irrigation methods viz. furrow, micro-sprinkler and gravity-fed drip. Irrigation was scheduled at every weekly basis to restore back the soil water required to achieve the field capacity. Mean value of soil water up to 15 cm depth was 21.75, 22.65 and 23.45%, however, range (minimum to maximum) was 16.21-29.17; 15.56-29.21 and 17.84-28.97% for furrow, micro-sprinkler and gravity-fed drip irrigation, respectively. Co-efficient of variation was found to be the maximum (4.65%) for furrow over other two types of irrigations during the weekly interval. Deviation of in-situ soil water was found to vary rapidly at upper layer (30 cm) under furrow method of irrigation; but at deeper soil layer rapid variation was not observed. Water use efficiency of potato was evaluated to be 14.66, 18.78, 20.63 kg ha-1 mm-1 for furrow, micro-sprinkler and gravity-fed drip irrigation, respectively.


2004 ◽  
pp. 369-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.S. Koumanov ◽  
J.W. Hopmans ◽  
L.J. Schwankl

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaclav Sipek ◽  
Jan Hnilica ◽  
Lukáš Vlček ◽  
Soňa Hnilicová ◽  
Miroslav Tesař

<p>This study focuses on the description of soil water dynamics at four sites with different land cover types, namely beech forest, conifer forest, meadow and clipped grass. The analysis was based on soil tensiometer measurements from five consecutive vegetation seasons (comprising both wet and dry years). We investigated both column average pressure heads and also their vertical distribution. The soil water balance was studied by the HYDRUS-1D model. The highest pressure heads were observed at the grassland site, followed by the meadow site. The forested sites were generally reaching lower pressure head values, which was a result of higher evapotranspiration and different soil properties. The differences between the spruce forest (Picea abies (L.)) and beech forest (Fagus sylvatica L.) were evident namely in dry periods, when the beech site was experiencing lower pressure heads. Contrarily, the spruce site was drier (with recorded lower pressure heads) in wet periods and at the beginning of each season. Compared to the conifer forest, lower pressure heads were observed in beech forest, namely at the bottom of the inspected soil column (down to 100 cm). The inspection of the soil water balance revealed different rates of evapotranspiration and drainage at all sites. The evapotranspiration was highest in the beech canopy followed by spruce and both grass covered sites. The differences between spruce and beech forest were based namely on the water consumption efficiency and differences in interception rates, vertical distribution of the roots, and soil hydraulic properties.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>This research was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GA CR 20-00788S), SoilWater project (EIG CONCERT-Japan), and by the institutional support of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic (RVO: 67985874).</p>


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 441-483
Author(s):  
B. A. Ebel ◽  
E. S. Hinckley ◽  
D. A. Martin

Abstract. Many forested watersheds with a substantial fraction of precipitation delivered as snow have the potential for landscape disturbance by wildfire. Little is known about the immediate effects of wildfire on snowmelt and near-surface hydrologic responses, including soil-water storage. Montane systems at the rain-snow transition have soil-water dynamics that are further complicated during the snowmelt period by strong aspect controls on snowmelt and soil thawing. Here we present data and analysis from field measurements of snow hydrology and subsurface hydrologic and temperature responses during the first winter and spring after the September 2010 Fourmile Canyon Fire in Colorado, USA. Our observations of soil-water content and soil temperature show sharp contrasts in hydrologic and thermal conditions between north- and south-facing slopes. South-facing burned soils were ~1–2 °C warmer on average than north-facing burned soils and ~1.5 °C warmer than south-facing unburned soils, which affected soil thawing during the snowmelt period. Soil-water dynamics also differed by aspect: in response to soil thawing, soil-water content increased approximately one month earlier on south-facing burned slopes than on north-facing burned slopes. While aspect and wildfire affect soil-water dynamics during snowmelt, soil-water storage at the end of the snowmelt period reached the value at field capacity for each plot, suggesting that post-snowmelt unsaturated storage was not substantially influenced by aspect in wildfire-affected areas. Our data and analysis indicate that snowmelt-driven groundwater recharge may be larger in wildfire-impacted areas, especially on south-facing slopes, because of earlier soil thaw and longer durations of soil-water contents above field capacity in those areas.


2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 1401-1417 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. A. Ebel ◽  
E. S. Hinckley ◽  
D. A. Martin

Abstract. Many forested watersheds with a substantial fraction of precipitation delivered as snow have the potential for landscape disturbance by wildfire. Little is known about the immediate effects of wildfire on snowmelt and near-surface hydrologic responses, including soil-water storage. Montane systems at the rain-snow transition have soil-water dynamics that are further complicated during the snowmelt period by strong aspect controls on snowmelt and soil thawing. Here we present data from field measurements of snow hydrology and subsurface hydrologic and temperature responses during the first winter and spring after the September 2010 Fourmile Canyon Fire in Colorado, USA. Our observations of soil-water content and soil temperature show sharp contrasts in hydrologic and thermal conditions between north- and south-facing slopes. South-facing burned soils were ∼1–2 °C warmer on average than north-facing burned soils and ∼1.5 °C warmer than south-facing unburned soils, which affected soil thawing during the snowmelt period. Soil-water dynamics also differed by aspect: in response to soil thawing, soil-water content increased approximately one month earlier on south-facing burned slopes than on north-facing burned slopes. While aspect and wildfire affect soil-water dynamics during snowmelt, soil-water storage at the end of the snowmelt period reached the value at field capacity for each plot, suggesting that post-snowmelt unsaturated storage was not substantially influenced by aspect in wildfire-affected areas. Our data and analysis indicate that the amount of snowmelt-driven groundwater recharge may be larger in wildfire-impacted areas, especially on south-facing slopes, because of earlier soil thaw and longer durations of soil-water contents above field capacity in those areas.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 971-987 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erwin Zehe ◽  
Ralf Loritz ◽  
Conrad Jackisch ◽  
Martijn Westhoff ◽  
Axel Kleidon ◽  
...  

Abstract. The present study confirms that a thermodynamic perspective on soil water is well suited to distinguishing the typical interplay of gravity and capillarity controls on soil water dynamics in different landscapes. To this end, we express the driving matric and gravity potentials by their energetic counterparts and characterize soil water by its free energy state. The latter is the key to defining a new system characteristic determining the possible range of energy states of soil water, reflecting the joint influences of soil physical properties and height over nearest drainage (HAND) in a stratified manner. As this characteristic defines the possible range of energy states of soil water in the root zone, it also allows an instructive comparison of top soil water dynamics observed in two distinctly different landscapes. This is because the local thermodynamic equilibrium at a given HAND and the related equilibrium storage allow a subdivision of the possible free energy states into two different regimes. Wetting of the soil in local equilibrium implies that free energy of soil water becomes positive, which in turn implies that the soil is in a state of storage excess, while further drying of the soil leads to a negative free energy and a state of storage deficit. We show that during 1 hydrological year the energy states of soil water visit distinctly different parts of their respective energy state spaces. The two study areas compared here exhibit furthermore a threshold-like relation between the observed free energy of soil water in the riparian zone and observed streamflow, while the tipping points coincide with the local equilibrium state of zero free energy. We found that the emergence of a potential energy excess/storage excess in the riparian zone coincides with the onset of storage-controlled direct streamflow generation. While such threshold behaviour is not unusual, it is remarkable that the tipping point is consistent with the underlying theoretical basis.


2007 ◽  
Vol 291 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 211-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingyun Zhou ◽  
Shaozhong Kang ◽  
Lu Zhang ◽  
Fusheng Li

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