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BASINWIDE WATER‐BALANCE MODELING WITH EMPHASIS ON SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF GROUND WATER RECHARGE 1
Author(s) -
Sophocleous Marios,
McAllister J. A.
Publication year - 1987
Publication title -
jawra journal of the american water resources association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.957
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1752-1688
pISSN - 1093-474X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-1688.1987.tb00849.x
Subject(s) - water balance , evapotranspiration , environmental science , groundwater recharge , hydrology (agriculture) , vegetation (pathology) , drainage , water cycle , soil water , drainage basin , watershed , grassland , water resources , groundwater , soil science , geology , agronomy , ecology , geography , aquifer , medicine , geotechnical engineering , cartography , pathology , machine learning , computer science , biology
ABSTRACT: A detailed but simple hydrologic budget for the entire Rattlesnake Creek basin (3,768 km 2 ) in south‐central Kansas was developed. With this budget, using minimal daily‐weather input data and the soil‐plant‐water system‐analysis methodology, we were able to characterize the spatial distribution of the hydrologic components of the water balance within the basin. A combination of classification and meteorological methods resulted in a basinwide integration methodology. Using this methodology, we found that, in addition to obvious climatic controls, soil, vegetation, and land‐use factors also exert considerable influence on the water balance of the area. The available‐water capacity (AWC) of soil profiles plays a dominant role in soil‐water‐deficit development and deep drainage. Vegetation and dryland or irrigated farming particularly affect the evapotranspiration (ET) components, with ET from irrigated corn and alfalfa being two to three times that from wheat. Deep drainage from irrigated wheat fields was found to be significantly higher than that from grassland and dryland wheat; deep drainage from alfalfa is practically nonexistent. We demonstrated how vegetation changes may affect components of the hydrologic cycle. We also showed that different portions of the watershed have different water‐balance components and that use of single average values of hydrologic variables in management practices may not be realistic.