Water and heat transport in hilly red soil of southern China:I. Experiment and analysis

Studies on coupled transfer of soil moisture and heat have been widely carried out for decades. However, little work has been done on red soils, widespread in southern China. The simultaneous transfer of soil moisture and heat depends on soil physical properties and the climate conditions. Red soil is heavy clay and high content of free iron and aluminum oxide. The climate conditions are characterized by the clear four seasons and the serious seasonal drought. The great annual and diurnal air temperature differences result in significant fluctuation in soil temperature in top layer. The closed and evaporating columns experiments with red soil were conducted to simulate the coupled transfer of soil water and heat under the overlaying and opening fields’ conditions, and to analyze the effects of soil temperature gradient on the water transfer and the effects of initial soil water contents on the transfer of soil water and heat. The closed and evaporating columns were designed similarly with about 18 °C temperatures differences between the top and bottom boundary, except of the upper end closed or exposed to the air, respectively. Results showed that in the closed column, water moved towards the cold end driven by temperature gradient, while the transported water decreased with the increasing initial soil water content until the initial soil water content reached to field capacity equivalent, when almost no changes for the soil moisture profile. In the evaporating column, the net transport of soil water was simultaneously driven by evaporation and temperature gradients, and the drier soil was more influenced by temperature gradient than by evapo- ration. In drier soil, it took a longer time for the temperature to reach equilibrium, because of more net amount of transported water.

Effects of biodegradable mulch on soil water and heat conditions,yield and quality of processing tomatoes by drip irrigation

To combat the problem of residual film pollution and ensure the sustainable development of agriculture in oasis areas,a field experiment was carried out in 2019 at the Wuyi Farm Corps Irrigation Center Test Station in Urumqi,Northwest China.Four types of biodegradable mulches,traditional plastic mulchs and a control group(bare land;referred to as CK)were compared,including a total of six different treatments.Effects of mulching on soil water and heat conditions as well as the yield and quality of processing tomatoes under drip irrigation were examined.In addition,a comparative analysis of economic benefits of biodegradable mulches was performed.Principal component analysis and gray correlation analysis were used to evaluate suitable mulching varieties for planting processing tomatoes under drip irrigation.Our results show that,compared with CK,biodegradable mulches and traditional plastic mulch have a similar effect on retaining soil moisture at the seedling stage but significantly increase soil moisture by 0.5%-1.5%and 1.5%-3.0%in the middle and late growth periods(P<0.050),respectively.The difference in the thermal insulation effect between biodegradable mulch and plastic mulch gradually reduces as the crop grows.Compared with plastic mulch,the average soil temperature at 5-20 cm depth under biodegradable mulches is significantly lowered by 2.04°C-3.52°C and 0.52°C-0.88°C(P<0.050)at the seedling stage and the full growth period,respectively,and the water use efficiency,average fruit yield,and production-investment ratio under biodegradable mulches were reduced by 0.89%-6.63%,3.39%-8.69%,and 0.51%-6.33%(P<0.050),respectively.The comprehensive evaluation analysis suggests that the black oxidized biological double-degradation ecological mulch made from eco-benign plastic is the optimal film type under the study condition.Therefore,from the perspective of sustainable development,biodegradable mulch is a competitive alternative to plastic mulch for large-scale tomato production under drip irrigation in the oasis.

Coupled Transfer of Water and Heat in Red Soil: Experiment and Numerical Modelling

Coupled transfer of soil water and heat in closed columns of homogeneous red soil was studied under laboratory conditions. A coupled model was constructed using soil physical theory, empirical equations and experimental data to predict the coupled transfer. The results show that transport of soil water was affected by temperature gradient, and the largest net water transport was found in the soil column with initial water content of 0.148 m3 m-3. At the same time, temperature changes with the transport of soil water was in a nonlinear shape as heat parameters were function of water content, and the changes of temperature were positively correlated with the net amount of water transported. Numerical modelling results show that the predicted values of temperature distribution were close to the observed values, while the predicted values of water content exhibited limited deviation at both ends of the soil column due to the slight temperature changes at both ends. It was indicated that the model proposed here was applicable.

Water and heat transport in hilly red soil of southern China:II. Modeling and simulation

Simulation models of heat and water transport have not been rigorously tested for the red soils of southern China. Based on the theory of nonisothermal water-heat coupled transfer, a simulation model, programmed in Visual Basic 6.0, was developed to predict the coupled transfer of water and heat in hilly red soil. A series of soil column experiments for soil water and heat transfer, including soil columns with closed and evaporating top ends, were used to test the simulation model. Results showed that in the closed columns, the temporal and spatial distribution of moisture and heat could be very well predicted by the model, while in the evaporating columns, the simulated soil water contents were somewhat different from the observed ones. In the heat flow equation by Taylor and Lary (1964), the effect of soil water evaporation on the heat flow is not involved, which may be the main reason for the differences between simulated and observed results. The predicted temperatures were not in agreement with the observed one with thermal conductivities calculated by de Vries and Wierenga equations, so that it is suggested that Kh, soil heat conductivity, be multiplied by 8.0 for the first 6.5 h and by 1.2 later on. Sensitivity analysis of soil water and heat coefficients showed that the saturated hydraulic conductivity, KS, and the water diffusivity, D(θ), had great effects on soil water transport; the variation of soil porosity led to the difference of soil thermal properties, and accordingly changed temperature redistribution, which would affect water redistribution.

Different discretization method used in coupled water and heat transport mode for soil under freezing conditions

A coupled water and heat transport mode is established based on the Richards equation to study water flow and heat transport in soil during freezing process. Both the finite difference and finite element method are used in the discretization, respectively. Two different computer programs are written and used to simulate an indoor unidirectional frozen test. The freezing depth, freezing rate and temperature variation are compared among lab tests, finite difference calculation simulation and finite element calculation simulation. Result shows that： the finite difference method has a better performance in freezing depth simulation while the finite element method has a better performance in numerical stability in one-dimensional freezing simulation.

Influence of environmental factors on land-surface water and heat exchange during dry and wet periods in the growing season of semiarid grassland on the Loess Plateau

On the basis of information from the project ＂Land-surface Processes and their Experimental Study on the Chinese Loess Plateau＂, we analyzed differences in land-surface water and heat processes during the main dry and wet periods of the semiarid grassland growing season in Yuzhong County, as well as the influences of these environmental factors. Studies have shown that there are significant differences in changes of land-surface temperature and humidity during dry and wet periods. Daily average normalized temperature has an overall vertical distribution of ＂forward tilting＂ and ＂backward tilting＂ during dry and wet periods, respectively. During the dry period, shallow soil above 20-cm depth is the active temperature layer. The heat transfer rate in soil is obviously different during dry and wet periods. During the dry period, the ratio of sensible heat flux to net radiation （H/Rn） and the value of latent heat flux to net radiation （LE/Rn） have a linear relationship with 5-cm soil temperature; during the wet period, these have a nonlinear relationship with 5-cm soil temperature, and soil temperature of 16℃ is the critical temperature for changes in the land-surface water and heat exchange trend on a daily scale. During the dry period, H/Rn and LE/Rn have a linear relationship with soil water content. During the wet period, these have a nonlinear relationship with 5-cm soil water content, and 0.21 m^3 m^-3 is the critical point for changes in the land-surface water and heat exchange trend at daily scale. During the dry period, for vapor pressure deficit less than 0.7 kPa, H/Rn rises with increased vapor pressure deficit, whereas LEIRn decreases with that increase. When that deficit is greater than 0.7 kPa, both H/Rn and LE/Rn tend to be constant. During the wet period, H/Rn increases with the vapor pressure deficit, whereas LE/Rn decreases. The above characteristics directly reflect the effect of differences in land-surface environmental factors during land-surface water and heat exchange processes, and indirectly reflect the influences of cloud precipitation processes on those processes.

A soil water and heat transfer model including changes in soil frost and thaw fronts

Freeze-thaw processes in soils,including changes in frost and thaw fronts(FTFs),are important physical processes.The movement of FTFs affects soil hydrothermal characteristics,as well as energy and water exchanges between the land surface and the atmosphere and hydrothermal processes in the land surface.This paper reduces the issue of soil freezing and thawing to a multiple moving-boundary problem and develops a soil water and heat transfer model which considers the effects of FTF on soil hydrothermal processes.A local adaptive variable-grid method is used to discretize the model.Sensitivity tests based on the hierarchical structure of the Community Land Model(CLM)show that multiple FTFs can be continuously tracked,which overcomes the difficulties of isotherms that cannot simultaneously simulate multiple FTFs in the same soil layer.The local adaptive variable-grid method is stable and offers computational efficiency several times greater than the high-resolution case.The simulated FTF depths,soil temperatures,and soil moisture values fit well with the observed data,which further demonstrates the potential application of this simulation to the land-surface process model.

Modeling water and carbon fluxes above summer maize field in North China Plain with back-propagation neural networks

In this work, datasets of water and carbon fluxes measured with eddy covariance technique above a summer maize field in the North China Plain were simulated with artificial neural networks (ANNs) to explore the fluxes responses to local environmental variables. The results showed that photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), vapor pressure deficit (VPD), air temperature (T) and leaf area index (LAI) were primary factors regulating both water vapor and carbon dioxide fluxes. Three-layer back-propagation neural networks (BP) could be applied to model fluxes exchange between cropland surface and atmosphere without using detailed physiological information or specific parameters of the plant.

Impacts of Climate Change and Human Activities on Water Suitability in the Upper and Middle Reaches of the Tao'er River Area

Due to the impact of climate change and human activities, the upper and middle reaches of the Tao＇er River have become an ecologically sensitive area in Northeast China. It is important to evaluate the contributions of climate change and human activities to water suitability in the Tao＇er River area. From the perspective of water and heat balance, the water suitability index （Cr） was used to analyze the water suitability of the upper and middle reaches of the river. The nonparametric Mann-Kendall, moving t-test and cumulative anomaly methods were used to detect abrupt changes in Taonan station runoff from 1961 to 2012. Three inflexion years were detected. Thus, the entire time period was divided into four periods： 1961-1974, 1975-1983, 1984-1998, and 1999-2012. In order to estimate the impacts of climate change and human activities on runoff, the slope change ratio of cumulative quan- tity （SCRCQ） was adopted. Finally, the contribution of climate change and human activity to Cr was transformed from the contribution of climate change and human activity to runoff by the sensitivity coefficient method and SCIRCQ method. The results showed that the water suitability index （cr） had a decreasing trend 1961-2012. Fac- tors influencing cr, such as net radiation and runoff, also exhibited a decreasing trend, while precipitation exhibited an increasing trend over the past 52 years. The trends of Cr, net radiation and runoff were obvious, which passed the Mann-kendall test of significance at a=0.05. Human activities were the main factors that affected runoff, al- though the degree of impact was different at different times. During the past 52 years, the biggest contributor to the change in Cr was precipitation.

Numerical Experiments for the influence of the Transition Zone Migration on Summer Climate in North China

As the position of the transition zone changes obviously, that is, as the transition zone migrates to the north or the south from present position, it affects water or heat balance between the land and the atmosphere in a considerable degree and has a profound influence on climate in North China. The experiment results in this paper indicate whether in the dry case or in the wet case of the large-scale climatological background field, the surface air temperature in a wide range of the transition zone migration and its surrounding decreases as the transition zone migrates northward. Moreover, the net upward fluxes of the surface long wave radiation and the sensible heat decrease, and the evaporation to the atmosphere increases. As the transition zone migrates southward, the results are opposite. This kind of significant thermal forcing between the land and the atmosphere can excite secondary circulation or circulation cells, which interact with the large-scale circulation systems, changing the atmospheric motion, affecting the water vapor transportation and consequently having an effect on the precipitation.

JETS,PLUMES AND BUOYANT JETS IN STATIC ENVIRONMENT

Turbulence represents an essential aspect in atmospheric and oceanic circulations.In particu- lar,it is a preponderant factor in the dispersion of pollutants of artificial or natural origin.The vertical turbulent jets,plumes and buoyant jets discharging into static environment is one of the most important and basic flow patterns related with the environment pollution.These flows have numerous important applications,for example,thrust augmentors,waste disposal plumes from stacks and combustion systems,and significant problems of turbulent diffusion.