Modeling Root Water Uptake in Hydrological and Climate Models

Feddes, R.A.; Hoff, Holger; Bruen, Michael; Dawson, Todd E.; Rosnay, Patricia de; Dirmeyer, Paul A.; Jackson, Robert B.; Kabat, P.; Kleidon, Axel; Lilly, Allan; Pitman, Andrew J.

doi:10.1175/1520-0477(2001)082<2797:mrwuih>2.3.co;2

Cited by 355 publications

(282 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

269

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…1A) by taking the maximum rate of evapotranspiration as a fraction, , of the potential evaporation, PE, from bare soil. The lower evapotranpirational losses from the top soil beneath vegetation canopies is because vegetation takes up water from a deeper soil column than the shallow layer affected by bare-soil evaporation (22,23), whereas the atmospheric evaporative demand on bare and vegetated soil is about the same. Thus, E(s) is expressed as a function of soil moisture (24,25) and vegetation biomass, V, as shown in Fig.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noise-induced stability in dryland plant ecosystems

D’Odorico

Laio

Ridolfi

2005

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

160

117

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dryland plant ecosystems tend to exhibit bistable dynamics with two preferential configurations of bare and vegetated soils. Climate fluctuations are usually believed to act as a source of disturbance on these ecosystems and to reduce their stability and resilience. In contrast, this work shows that random interannual fluctuations of precipitation may lead to the emergence of an intermediate statistically stable condition between the two stable states of the deterministic dynamics of vegetation. As a result, there is an enhancement of ecosystem resilience and a decrease in the likelihood of catastrophic shifts to the desert state.climate fluctuations ͉ ecosystem stability ͉ vegetation dynamics

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noise-induced stability in dryland plant ecosystems

D’Odorico

Laio

Ridolfi

2005

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

160

117

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As documented in Table 2, root water uptake is represented in most land models using a macroscopic approach described by Feddes et al [2001]. In this approach, the root water uptake for a given soil layer j is given as…”

Section: A2 Root Water Uptakementioning

confidence: 99%

Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth System Models

Clark

Fan

Lawrence

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

417

404

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many of the scientific and societal challenges in understanding and preparing for global environmental change rest upon our ability to understand and predict the water cycle change at large river basin, continent, and global scales. However, current large-scale land models (as a component of Earth System Models, or ESMs) do not yet reflect the best hydrologic process understanding or utilize the large amount of hydrologic observations for model testing. This paper discusses the opportunities and key challenges to improve hydrologic process representations and benchmarking in ESM land models, suggesting that (1) land model development can benefit from recent advances in hydrology, both through incorporating key processes (e.g., groundwater-surface water interactions) and new approaches to describe multiscale spatial variability and hydrologic connectivity; (2) accelerating model advances requires comprehensive hydrologic benchmarking in order to systematically evaluate competing alternatives, understand model weaknesses, and prioritize model development needs, and (3) stronger collaboration is needed between the hydrology and ESM modeling communities, both through greater engagement of hydrologists in ESM land model development, and through rigorous evaluation of ESM hydrology performance in research watersheds or Critical Zone Observatories. Such coordinated efforts in advancing hydrology in ESMs have the potential to substantially impact energy, carbon, and nutrient cycle prediction capabilities through the fundamental role hydrologic processes play in regulating these cycles.

show abstract

“…They connect the soil environment to the atmosphere through water, energy and mass exchanges between plant canopy and atmosphere (Feddes et al, 2001). Better understanding and generalizing root water uptake function are important to improve the predictability of LSMs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The latter, however, is hard to describe. In majority of LSMs, root water uptake efficiency is formulated with empirical functions of root fraction and soil water content (Lai and Katul, 2000;Feddes et al, 2001;Li et al, 2006;Zheng and Wang, 2007). One of known deficiencies of some LSMs (for example CABLE) is the underestimation of latent heat flux due to inappropriate description of root water uptake process (Baker et al, 2008;Li et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Representing the root water uptake process in the Common Land Model for better simulating the energy and water vapour fluxes in a Central Asian desert ecosystem

Tol

Chen

et al. 2013

Journal of Hydrology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Keywords:Root water uptake efficiency Land surface modelling Desert shrubs Evapotranspiration s u m m a r yThe ability of roots to take up water depends on both root distribution and root water uptake efficiency. The former can be experimentally measured, while the latter is extremely difficult to determine. Yet a correct representation of root water uptake process in land surface models (LSMs) is essential for a correct simulation of the response of vegetation to drought environment. This study evaluates the performance of the Common Land Model (CLM) to reproduce energy and water vapour fluxes measured with an eddy covariance system in a Central Asian desert ecosystem. The default CLM appears to be able to reproduce observed net radiation, soil subsurface temperature, and wet period latent (Q le ) and sensible heat (Q h ) fluxes, but significantly underestimate Q le and overestimate Q h during dry period. Underestimation of Q le is attributed to the inappropriate representation of root water uptake process in the CLM model. Modifying the original root water uptake function (RWUF) with a linear function of soil water potential to one with an exponential function significantly improves the performances for both Q le and Q h . The net radiation and ground heat flux simulations did not change noticeable with the new RWUF. It is concluded that an exponential RWUF is a valuable improvement of the CLM model and likely for other similar LSMs that use a linear RWUF for Central Asian desert ecosystems.

show abstract

Modeling Root Water Uptake in Hydrological and Climate Models

Cited by 355 publications

References 51 publications

Noise-induced stability in dryland plant ecosystems

Noise-induced stability in dryland plant ecosystems

Improving the representation of hydrologic processes in Earth System Models

Representing the root water uptake process in the Common Land Model for better simulating the energy and water vapour fluxes in a Central Asian desert ecosystem

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About