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Validation of a soil water balance model using soil water content and pressure head data
Author(s) -
Wegehenkel Martin
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
hydrological processes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.222
H-Index - 161
eISSN - 1099-1085
pISSN - 0885-6087
DOI - 10.1002/hyp.5557
Subject(s) - mean squared error , water balance , pressure head , environmental science , soil science , soil water , water content , hydrology (agriculture) , root mean square , mathematics , geotechnical engineering , statistics , geology , engineering , mechanical engineering , electrical engineering
The validation of soil water balance models and the evaluation of the quality of the model predictions at field‐scale require time‐series of in situ measured model outputs. In our study, we have validated such a model using a 6‐year period with time‐series of automatically recorded, daily volumetric soil water contents measured with the time‐domain reflectometry with intelligent microelements (TRIME) method and daily pressure heads measured with tensiometers. The comparisons of simulated with measured soil water contents and pressure heads were analysed using the modelling efficiency index (IA) and the square root of the mean square error (RMSE) in order to evaluate the prediction quality of the model. In our study, IA and RMSE, obtained either from the comparison of simulated with measured soil water contents or the comparison of calculated with observed pressure heads, in some cases lead to different results regarding the evaluation of the simulation quality of the soil water balance model. For example, a good fit between simulated and observed soil water contents does not necessarily result in a comparably good fit between the corresponding calculated and measured pressure heads. Therefore, a combined use of both measurement techniques, which takes into account their respective advantages and disadvantages, gives a more complete overview on the simulation quality of the soil water balance model than the single use of one of those techniques. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.