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Assessing rooting depths of an austrian pine stand by inverse modeling soil water content maps
Author(s) -
Musters P. A. D.,
Bouten W.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/1999wr900173
Subject(s) - throughfall , soil science , water content , soil water , environmental science , spatial variability , hydrology (agriculture) , range (aeronautics) , kriging , reflectometry , water flow , geology , mathematics , time domain , statistics , materials science , computer science , composite material , computer vision , geotechnical engineering
Rooting depths in a forested stand (0.11 ha) were estimated indirectly by inverse modeling maps of soil water contents from time domain reflectometry (TDR) measurements at 150 points. These maps were described with a calibrated one‐dimensional soil water flow model, with specific values for the rooting depth, van Genuchten 's [1980] α parameter, and throughfall fraction at each point. At about one third of the 150 points, modeled rooting depths did not fall within the a priori likely range of rooting depths; these values were discarded when kriging the point estimates to a map of rooting depths. The resulting rooting depths range from 0.8 m to 3.5 m within the stand in good agreement with root observations ( R 2 = 0.85). Several factors contributed positively to this good match, such as the fairly uniform soil hydraulic properties and the high sensitivity of soil water dynamics to root water uptake. Overall, the results demonstrate the suitability of soil water content maps based on TDR measurements to quantify spatial variability in soil water dynamics.