Soil water movement and deep drainage through thick vadose zones on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountain: Croplands vs.natural lands

Regional aridity is increasing under global climate change,and therefore the sustainable use of water resources has drawn attention from scientists and the public.Land-use changes can have a significant impact on groundwater recharge in arid regions,and quantitative assessment of the impact is key to sustainable groundwater resources management.In this study,the changes of groundwater recharge after the conversion of natural lands to croplands were investigated and compared in inland and arid region,i.e.,the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountain.Stable isotopes suggest that soil water in topsoil(<2 m)has experienced stronger evaporation under natural lands than croplands,and then moves downward as a piston flow.Recharge was estimated by the tracer-based mass balance method,i.e.,chloride and sulfate.Recharge rates under natural conditions estimated by the chloride mass balance(CMB)method were estimated to be 0.07 mm/a in deserts and 0.4 mm/a in oases.In contrast,the estimated groundwater recharge ranged from 61.2 mm/a to 44.8 mm/a in croplands,indicating that groundwater recharge would increase significantly after land changes from natural lands to irrigated croplands in arid regions.Recharge estimated by the sulfate mass balance method is consistent with that from the CMB method,indicating that sulfate is also a good tracer capable of estimating groundwater recharge.

Responses of phreatophyte transpiration to falling water table in hyper-arid and arid regions,Northwest China

Quantitative assessment of the impact of groundwater depletion on phreatophytes in(hyper-)arid regions is key to sustainable groundwater management.However,a parsimonious model for predicting the response of phreatophytes to a decrease of the water table is lacking.A variable saturated flow model,HYDRUS-1D,was used to numerically assess the influences of depth to the water table(DWT)and mean annual precipitation(MAP)on transpiration of groundwater-dependent vegetation in(hyper-)arid regions of northwest China.An exponential relationship is found for the normalized transpiration(a ratio of transpiration at a certain DWT to transpiration at 1 m depth,T_(a)^(*))with increasing DWT,while a positive linear relationship is identified between T_(a)^(*)and annual precipitation.Sensitivity analysis shows that the model is insensitive to parameters,such as saturated soil hydraulic conductivity and water stress parameters,indicated by an insignificant variation(less than 20%in most cases)under±50%changes of these parameters.Based on these two relationships,a universal model has been developed to predict the response of phreatophyte transpiration to groundwater drawdown for(hyper-)arid regions using MAP only.The estimated T_(a)^(*)from the model is reasonable by comparing with published measured values.