Effects of Water-table Depth and Soil Moisture on Plant Biomass, Diversity, and Distribution at a Seasonally Flooded Wetland of Poyang Lake, China

Hydrological regime has been widely recognized as one of the major forces determining vegetation distribution in seasonally flooded wetland. Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, has been encountering dramatic changes in hydrological conditions in last decade, which greatly influenced the wetland vegetations. To explore the relationships between hydrology and vegetation distri- bution, water-table depth, soil moisture, species composition, diversity and biomass were measured at a seasonally flooded wetland section at Wucheng National Nature Reserve. Three plant communities, Artemisia capillaris, Phragmites australis and Carex cineras- cens communities, were examined which are zonally distributed from upland to lakeshore with decreasing elevation. Canonical corre- spondence analysis （CCA）, spearmen correlation and logistic regression were adopted to analyze the relationships between vegetation characteristics and hydrological variables of water-table depth and soil moisture. Results show that significant hydrological gradient exist along the wetland transect. Water-table demonstrates a seasonal variation and is consistently deepest in A. capillaris community （ranging from q）.5 m above ground to ＋10.3 m below ground）, intermediate in P. australis community （-2.6 m to ＋7.8 m） and shallow- est in C. cinerascens community （-4.5 m to ＋6.1 m）. Soil moisture is lowest and most variable in A. capillaris community, highest and least variable in P. australis community, and intermediate and moderate variable in C. cinerascens community. The CCA ordination indicated that variables of water-table depth and soil moisture are strongly related to community distribution, which explained 81.7% of the vegetation variations. Species diversity indices are significantly positively correlated with soil moisture and negatively correlated with moisture variability, while above- and belowground biomass are positively correlated with moisture. Above- and belowground biomass present Gaussian models along the gradient of average water-table depth in growing season, while species diversity indices show bimodal patterns. The optimal average water-table depths for above- and belowground biomass are 0.8 m and 0.5 m, respectively, and are 2.2 m and 2.4 m for species richness and Shannon-Wiener indices, respectively. Outcomes of this work improved the under- standings of the relationship between hydrology and vegetation.

Iron-mediated soil carbon response to water-table decline in an alpine wetland

With the support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China,a collaborative study by the research groups led by Prof.Feng Xiaojuan(冯晓娟)from the Institute of Botany,Chinese Academy of Sciences and Prof.He Jinsheng(贺金生)from Peking University demonstrates the under-investigated role of iron(Fe)in mediating soil enzyme activity

Modeling of the Groundwater Flow and Saltwater Intrusion in the Coastal Aquifer of Fum Al Wad, Province of Laayoun, Morocco

Saltwater intrusion caused by groundwater over-exploitation from coastal aquifers poses a severe problem in many regions. The Fum Al Wad aquifer is located between Atlantic Ocean in the West and Laayoun in the East. This aquifer covers an area of 250 Km2, and represents an essential water resource for Laayoun city and the periphery regions. It is heavily exploited for water supply, agriculture and industry. The freshwater-saltwater interface is affected by groundwater extraction by public supplies, irrigation wells, and domestic wells in the coastal of this aquifer. The position of the interface is controlled by several factors: these include precipitation, recharge rate, dryness, evapotranspiration, hydraulic conductivity and hydraulic head. Landward migration of the interface freshwater-saltwater often results in a significant decrease in the water resources available for coastal communities. The volume pumped by public for irrigation and the domestic usage in 2010-2011 is estimated 2.5 Mm3/year, and in 2015 about 2.91 Mm3/year only for domestic usages. The objectives of this work are to model the groundwater flow and saltwater intrusion in the coastal aquifer of Fum Al Wad, by SEAWAT-2000 program which coupled both the version of MODFLOW-2000 and MT3DMS. They are designed to simulate variable-density groundwater flow and solute transport in three dimensions. The model is calibrated for hydraulic conductivity, specific yield, porosity, and recharge rate as well as dispersivity coefficient. The result of simulation of the hydrodynamic model during the period of 1986-2015 has revealed a piezometric drawdown with 2.3 m approximately at the level of the pumping zone. Furthermore, this piezometric depression is caused by excessive pumping of the various uses of water and its corresponding that has resulted in the migration of the saltwater intrusion into freshwater with 4.3 km approximately. The simulations result for scenarios 2020 and 2030 of Fum Al Wad aquifer showed a vertical decrease of the piezometric head (about 2.5 m) in 2030, but the saltwater intrusion has advanced diagonally to reach 4.7 km under the freshwater of groundwater of this aquifer.