Understanding of hydrological processes,including consideration of interactions between vegetation growth and water transfer in the root zone,underpins efficient use of water resources in arid-zone agriculture.Water transfers take place in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum,and include groundwater dynamics,unsaturated zone flow,evaporation/transpiration from vegetated/bare soil and surface water,agricultural canal/surface water flow and seepage,and well pumping.Models can be categorized into three classes:(1)regional distributed hydrological models with various land uses,(2)groundwater-soil-plant-atmosphere continuum models that neglect lateral water fluxes,and(3)coupled models with groundwater flow and unsaturated zone water dynamics.This review highlights,in addition,future research challenges in modeling arid-zone agricultural systems,e.g.,to effectively assimilate data from remote sensing,and to fully reflect climate change effects at various model scales.
To simulate the soil moisture variation in cropland, a two-parameter exponential recession model was derived to depict the recession process of soil moisture in the root zone. The model is based on the assumption that the recession rate of soil water is proportional to the potential evapotranspiration rate and the difference of soil water content and steady soil water content. Two parameters in this model are soil texture-dependent recession constant and steady soil water content. The model was calibrated and validated with measured soil water data at two experiment sites in North China with different soil textures and cropping systems. Coefficients of determination between measured and model simulated soil water content were all greater than 0.7, indicating that both models gave satisfactory simulation results. Results showed that values of two parameters mentioned above are both larger for finer soil than those for coarser soil. At the same potential evapotranspiration rate and soil water content, the recession rate of finer soil is usually lower than that of coarser soil. The proposed model can be used in irrigation management to predict approximate date for irrigation, as well as be embedded into watershed hydrological models to estimate the antecedent precipitation index.
Transpiration and photosynthesis are two closely related and intercoupled processes that dominate the physiological activities and yield of crops. Therefore, there is a need to study water-carbon coupling modeling at various scales to increase water use efficiency (WUE). Using a summer maize field in North China as an example, the variations in leaf and canopy photosynthesis and transpiration (or evapotranspiration) were analyzed. The synthetic model of photosynthesis-transpiration based on stomatal behavior (SMPT-SB) was then calibrated and validated at the two scales. The leaf photosynthesis and transpiration, as well as the canopy photosynthesis and evapotranspiration, have a consistent diurnal trend. However, the canopy evapotranspiration is affected more by topsoil moisture content. The regression coefficient between leaf photosynthesis, transpiration, and WUE estimated by the SMPT-SB and the measured values was found to approach 1, with a coefficient of determination of more than 0.74. The relative error between the two sets of values is less than 11%. Therefore, the SMPT-SB could express fairly well leaf photosynthesis, transpiration, and WUE. The estimated canopy-scale photosynthesis by the SMPT-SB is also in good agreement with the measured values. However, this model underestimates the canopy evapotranspiration when the topsoil has high moisture content and therefore overestimates, to a certain extent, the canopy WUE.
