Evaporation from Bare Soil in Extremely Arid Environment in Southern Israel

Microlysimeters of different sizes(5 cm 10 cm and 15 cm in length)were used extensively in the present study for the measurements of soil evapondion in site in an extremely arid area in southern Israel.All of the data obtained from the microlysimeters were used to evaluate two conventional eVaporation models developed by Black et al.and Ritchie,respectively.Our results indicated that the models could overestimate total cumulative evaporation by about 30% in the extremely arid environment.Reducing the power factor of the conventional model by a faCtor of 0.1 produced good agreement between the measured and simulated cumulative evaporation.Microlysimeter method proved to be a simple and accurate approach for the evaluation of soil evaporstion.

Effects of Shrub on Runoff and Soil Loss at Loess Slopes Under Simulated Rainfall

Improved understanding of the effect of shrub cover on soil erosion process will provide valuable information for soil and water conservation programs.Laboratory rainfall simulations were conducted to determine the effects of shrubs on runoff and soil erosion and to ascertain the relationship between the rate of soil loss and the runoff hydrodynamic characteristics.In these simulations a 20° slope was subjected to rainfall intensities of 45,87,and 127 mm/h.The average runoff rates ranged from 0.51 to 1.26 mm/min for bare soil plots and 0.15 to 0.96 mm/min for shrub plots.Average soil loss rates varied from 44.19 to 114.61 g/(min·m^2) for bare soil plots and from 5.61 to 84.58 g/(min·m^2) for shrub plots.There was a positive correlation between runoff and soil loss for the bare soil plots,and soil loss increased with increased runoff for shrub plots only when rainfall intensity is 127 mm/h.Runoff and soil erosion processes were strongly influenced by soil surface conditions because of the formation of erosion pits and rills.The unit stream power was the optimal hydrodynamic parameter to characterize the soil erosion mechanisms.The soil loss rate increased linearly with the unit stream power on both shrub and bare soil plots.Critical unit stream power values were 0.004 m/s for bare soil plots and 0.017 m/s for shrub plots.

Effect of climate change on the trends of evaporation of phreatic water from bare soil in Huaibei Plain, China

When the soil condition and depth to water table stay constant, climate condition will then be the only determinant of evaporation intensity of phreatic water from bare soil. Based on a series of long-term quality-controlled data collected at the Wudaogou Hydrological Experiment Station in the Huaibei Plain, Anhui, China, the variation trends of the evaporation rate of phreatic water from bare soil were studied through the Mann-Kendall trend test and the linear regression trend test, followed by the study on the responses of evaporation to climate change. Results indicated that in the Huaibei Plain during 1991-2008, evaporation of phreatic water from bare soil tended to increase at a rate of 5% on monthly scale in March, June and July while in other months the increase was minor. On the seasonal basis, the evaporation saw significant increase in spring and summer. In addition, annual evaporation tended to grow evidently over time. When air temperature rises by 1 °C, the annual evaporation rate increases by 7.24–14.21%, while when the vapor pressure deficit rises by 10%, it changes from-0.09 to 5.40%. The study also provides references for further understanding of the trends and responses of regional evapotranspiration to climate change.

Success of three soil restoration techniques on seedling survival and growth of three plant species in the Sahel of Burkina Faso(West Africa)

In the Sahel of Africa, where 90 % of the population depends on natural resources for their liveli- hood, a large part of the soils are structurally unstable, prone to crusting and hard setting, and have low water holding capacity, which hamper vegetation establishment. The effect of soil restoration techniques on survival and growth of seedlings of Acacia nilotica, Acacia tortilis and Jatropha curcas was tested in completely barren, degraded land in a Sahelian ecosystem in Burkina Faso. A total of 522 seedlings （174 plants of each plant species） were planted in a randomized complete block design with three replicates combining three soil preparation techniques： half-moon, zai＂ and standard plantation. Survival and growth rates evaluated over 20 months were significantly higher using the half-moon technique compared with the other two techniques. Survival rates of plant species planted using half-moon technique were 62.5, 28.57 and 10.71% for A. nilotica, A. tortilis and J. curcas respec- tively, but in za＇i and standard planting, seedling survival was zero. The low survival rate of J. curcas using the half-moon technique may indicate that J. curcas is unsuit- able for barren and degraded land, whereas A. nilotica and A. tortilis appear to be promising tree species for rehabil- itation of degraded land.

Comparison and analysis of bare soil evaporation models combined with ASTER data in Heihe River Basin

Based on ASTER （Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer） remote sensing data, bare soil evaporation was estimated with the Penman-Monteith model, the Priestley-Taylor model, and the aerodynamics model. Evaporation estimated by each of the three models was compared with actual evaporation, and error sources of the three models were analyzed. The mean absolute relative error was 9% for the Penman-Monteith model, 14% for the Priestley-Taylor model, and 32% for the aerodynamics model; the Penman-Monteith model was the best of these three models for estimating bare soil evaporation. The error source of the Penman-Monteith model is the neglect of the advection estimation. The error source of the Priestley-Taylor model is the simplification of the component of aerodynamics as 0.72 times the net radiation. The error source of the aerodynamics model is the difference of vapor pressure and neglect of the radiometric component. The spatial distribution of bare soil evaporation is evident, and its main factors are soil water content and elevation.

Simulation of the Bare Soil Surface Energy Balance at the Tongyu Reference Site in Semiarid Area of North China

The performance of a I-D soil model in a semiarid area of North China was investigated using observational data from a cropland station at the Tongyu reference site of the Coordinated Enhanced Observing Period （CEOP） during the non-growing period, when the ground surface was covered with bare soil. Comparisons between simulated and observed soil surface energy balance components as well as soil temperatures and water contents were conducted to validate the soil model. Results show that the soil model could produce good simulations of soil surface temperature, net radiation flux, and sensible heat flux against observed values with the RMSE of 1.54℃, 7.71 W m^-2, and 27.79 W m^-2, respectively. The simulated volumetric soil water content is close to the observed values at various depths with the maximal difference between them being 0.03. Simulated latent heat and ground heat fluxes have relatively larger errors in relative to net radiation and sensible heat flux. In conclusion, the soil model has good capacity to simulate the bare soil surface energy balance at the Tongyu cropland station and needs to be further tested in longer period and at more sites in semiarid areas.

Measurement and simulation of evaporation from a bare soil

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Improvement of Surface Albedo Simulations over Arid Regions

To improve the simulation of the surface radiation budget and related thermal processes in arid regions, three sophisticated surface albedo schemes designed for such regions were incorporated into the Biosphere- Atmosphere Transfer Scheme （BATS）. Two of these schemes are functions of the solar zenith angle （SZA）, where the first one has one adjustable parameter defined as SZA1 scheme, and the second one has two empirical parameters defined as SZA2 scheme. The third albedo scheme is a function of solar angle and soil water that were developed based on arid-region observations from the Dunhuang field experiment （DHEX） （defined as DH scheme）. We evaluated the performance of the original and newly-incorporated albedo schemes within BATS using the in-situ data from the Oasis System Energy and Water Cycle Field Experiment that was carried out in JinTa, Gansu arid area （JTEX）. The results indicate that a control run by the original version of the BATS generates a constant albedo, while the SZA1 and SZA2 schemes basically can reproduce the observed diurnal cycle of surface albedo, although these two schemes still underestimate the albedo when SZA is high in the early morning and late afternoon, and overestimate it when SZA is low during noontime. The SZA2 scheme has a better overall performance than the SZA1 scheme. In addition, BATS with the DH scheme slightly improves the albedo simulation in magnitude as compared to that from the control run, but a diurnal cycle of albedo is not produced by this scheme. The SZA1 and SZA2 schemes significantly increase the surface absorbed solar radiation by nearly 70 W m^-2, which further raises the ground temperature by 6 K and the sensible heat flux by 35 W m^-2. The increased solar radiation, heat flux, and temperature are more consistent with the observations that those from the control run. However, a significant improvement in these three variables is not found in BATS with the DH scheme due to the neglect of the diurnal cycle of albedo. Further analysis indicates that during cloudy days the solar radiation simulations of BATS with these three schemes are not in a good agreement with the observations, which implies that a more realistic partitioning of diffuse and direct radiation is needed in future land surface process simulations.

Vegetation fractional coverage change in a typical oasis region in Tarim River Watershed based on remote sensing

Vegetation fractional coverage （VFC） is an important index to describe and evaluate the ecological system. The vegetation index is widely used to monitor vegetation coverage in the field of remote sensing （RS）. In this paper, the author conducted a case study of the delta oasis of Weigan and Kuqa rivers, which is a typical saline area in the Tarim River Watershed. The current study was based on the TM/ETM＋ images of 1989, 2001, and 2006, and supported by Geographic Information System （GIS） spatial analysis, vegetation index, and dimidiate pixel model. In addition, VBSl （vegetation, bare soil and shadow indices） suitable for TM/ETM＋ irrlages, constructed with FCD （forest canopy density） model principle and put forward by ITTO （International Tropical Timber Organization）, was used, and it was applied to estimate the VFC. The estimation accuracy was later prow^n to be up to 83.52%. Further, the study analyzed and appraised the changes in vegetation patterns and revealed a pattern of spatial change in the vegetation coverage of the study area by producing the map of VFC levels in the delta oasis. Forest, grassland, and farmland were the three main land-use types with high and extremely-high coverage, and they played an important role in maintaining the vegetation. The forest area determined the changes of the coverage area, whereas the other two land types affected the directions of change. Therefore, planting trees, protecting grasslands, reclaiming farmlands, and controlling unused lands should be included in a long-term program because of their importance in keeping regional vegetation coverage. Finally, the dynamic variation of VFC in the study area was evaluated according to the quantity and spatial distribution rendered by plant cover diigital images to deeply analyze the reason behind the variation.

Influence of vegetation cover and other sources of variability on sediment and runoff response in a burned forest in South Korea

Post-fire field measurements of sediment and run off yield were undertaken in natural rainfall event-basis during five rainy months in Korea on a total of 15 small plots: four replica burned unseeded plots, six replica burned seeded plots, and five replica unburned plots. The main aim was to evaluate the effects of vegetation recovery and spatial distribution patterns on sediment and runoff response between and within the treatment replica erosion plots. Sixyears after the wildfire, total sediment and runoff yield in the burned unseeded plots with 20%-30%vegetation cover was still 120.8 and 20.6 times higher than in the unburned treatment plots with 100%ground cover, 8.3 and 6.7 times higher than in the burned seeded plots with 70%-80% vegetation cover,while only 1.6 and 2.0 times higher than in the burned seeded plots with 50%-60% vegetation cover,respectively. The differences in sediment and runoff yield between the treatment plots was proportional to total vegetation cover, distance of bare soil to vegetation cover, magnitude of rainfall characteristics and changes in soil properties, but not slope gradient.Three out of the six within-treatment pairs of two replica plots showed large differences in sediment and runoff yield of up to 6.0 and 4.2 times and mean CV of up to 99.1% and 62.2%, respectively. This was due to differences in the spatial distribution patterns of surface cover features, including aggregation of vegetation and litter covers, the distance of bare soil exposed to vegetation cover closer to the plot sediment collector and micro topographic mounds and sinks between pairs of replica plots. Small differences in sediment and runoff of only 0.9-1.4folds and mean CV of 8.6%-25% were observed where the within-treatment pairs of replica plots had similar slope, total surface cover components and comparable spatial distribution pattern of vegetation and bare soil exposed surface covers. The results indicated that post-fire hillslopes undergoing effective vegetation recovery have the potential to reduce sediment and runoff production nearer to unburned levels within 6-years after burning while wildfire impacts could last more than 6-years on burned unseeded ridge slopes undergoing slow vegetation recovery.

Effects of spatial distribution of soil parameters on soil moisture retrieval from passive microwave remote sensing

In this paper,we studied the effect of spatial distribution of soil parameters on passive soil moisture retrieval at pixel scale.First,we evaluated the forward microwave emission model and soil moisture retrieval algorithm accuracy through the observa-tion of field experiments.Then,we used soil parameters in different spatial distribution patterns,including random,normal,and uniform distribution,to determine the different levels of heterogeneity on soil moisture retrieval,in order to seek the rela-tionship between heterogeneity and soil moisture retrieval error.Finally,we conducted a controlled heterogeneity effect ex-periment measurements using a Truck-mounted Multi-frequency Radiometer(TMMR) to validate our simulation results.This work has proved that the soil moisture retrieval algorithm had a high accuracy(RMSE=0.049 cm3 cm 3) and can satisfy the need of this research.The simulation brightness temperatures match well with observations,with RMSE=9.89 K.At passive microwave remote sensing pixel scale,soil parameters with different spatial distribution patterns could have different levels of error on soil moisture estimation.Overall,we found that soil moisture with a random distribution in a satellite pixel scale can cause the largest error,with a normal distribution being the second,and a uniform distribution the least due to the smallest het-erogeneity.

Generating soil salinity, soil moisture, soil pH from satellite imagery and its analysis

In an agricultural field,the water content and salt content are defined as soil moisture and soil salinity and have to be estimated precisely.The changing of these two factors can be assessed using remote sensing technology.This study was conducted by analysing the Landsat 8 satellite images,soil data of field surveys,laboratory analyses and statistical computations.Soil properties such as soil moisture and soil salinity were estimated using soil moisture index(SMI)and soil salinity index(SSI),respectively.The research combined and integrated the soil data from survey and laboratory with Landsat 8 satellite images to build two multiple regression equations model named the soil pH Index(SpHI).They are based on bare soil and paddy leaf models as the explanatory factors of soil moisture and soil salinity changes.All the computation processes were replicated three times using three different dates of Landsat 8 satellite images to produce the multi-temporal analysis.Soil moisture increased after 30 days,while the salt content was only trace amounts.Both proposed models detected 4.49–7.59 of soil pH,4.66 in bare soil model and 6.62 in paddy leaf model.During the planting period,the soil pH in bare soil model decreased to 2.12–6.47 while the paddy leaf model increased to 4.49–7.59 with RMSE 1.40 and PRMSE 24%of accuracy.The spatial relationship between soil pH,soil salinity and soil moisture are linear but varied in correlation level from weak,moderate to strong.Based on the bare soil model,the relationship between soil pH and soil moisture shows a weak negative relationship with R28.37%and a strong positive relationship with R281.94%in paddy area and bare soil area respectively,as like as in paddy area based on the paddy leaf model with R2100%.The relationship between soil temperature and soil pH shows a weak negative relationship for all models and a moderate negative relationship of soil salinity and soil pH in bare soil area based on the bare soil model with R234.89%.

A disaggregation approach for estimating high spatial resolution broadband emissivity for bare soils from Landsat surface reflectance

High spatial resolution land surface broadband emissivity(BBE)is not only useful for surface energy balance studies at local scales,but also can bridge the gap between existing coarser resolution BBE products and point-based field measurements.This study proposes a disaggregation approach that utilizes the established BBE–reflectance relationship for estimating high spatial resolution BBE for bare soils from Landsat surface reflectance data.The disaggregated BBE is compared to the BBE calculated from spatial–temporal matched Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflectance Radiometer emissivity product.Comparison results show that better agreement is achieved over relative homogeneous areas,but deteriorated over heterogeneous and cloud-contaminated areas.In addition,field-measured emissivity data over large homogeneous desert were also used to validate the disaggregated BBE,and the bias is 0.005.The comparison and validation results indicated that the disaggregation approach can obtain high spatial resolution BBE with better accuracy for homogeneous area.