Forests in the Southeastern United States are predicted to experience future changes in seasonal patterns of precipitation inputs as well as more variable precipitation events. These climate change‐induced alterations could increase drought and lower soil water availability. Drought could alter rooting patterns and increase the importance of deep roots that access subsurface water resources. To address plant response to drought in both deep rooting and soil water utilization as well as soil drainage, we utilize a throughfall reduction experiment in a loblolly pine plantation of the Southeastern United States to calibrate and validate a hydrological model. The model was accurately calibrated against field measured soil moisture data under ambient rainfall and validated using 30% throughfall reduction data. Using this model, we then tested these scenarios: (a) evenly reduced precipitation; (b) less precipitation in summer, more in winter; (c) same total amount of precipitation with less frequent but heavier storms; and (d) shallower rooting depth under the above 3 scenarios. When less precipitation was received, drainage decreased proportionally much faster than evapotranspiration implying plants will acquire water first to the detriment of drainage. When precipitation was reduced by more than 30%, plants relied on stored soil water to satisfy evapotranspiration suggesting 30% may be a threshold that if sustained over the long term would deplete plant available soil water. Under the third scenario, evapotranspiration and drainage decreased, whereas surface run‐off increased. Changes in root biomass measured before and 4 years after the throughfall reduction experiment were not detected among treatments. Model simulations, however, indicated gains in evapotranspiration with deeper roots under evenly reduced precipitation and seasonal precipitation redistribution scenarios but not when precipitation frequency was adjusted. Deep soil and deep rooting can provide an important buffer capacity when precipitation alone cannot satisfy the evapotranspirational demand of forests. How this buffering capacity will persist in the face of changing precipitation inputs, however, will depend less on seasonal redistribution than on the magnitude of reductions and changes in rainfall frequency. 相似文献
In many arid ecosystems, vegetation frequently occurs in high-cover patches interspersed in a matrix of low plant cover. However, theoretical explanations for shrub patch pattern dynamics along climate gradients remain unclear on a large scale. This context aimed to assess the variance of the Reaumuria soongorica patch structure along the precipitation gradient and the factors that affect patch structure formation in the middle and lower Heihe River Basin (HRB). Field investigations on vegetation patterns and heterogeneity in soil properties were conducted during 2014 and 2015. The results showed that patch height, size and plant-to-patch distance were smaller in high precipitation habitats than in low precipitation sites. Climate, soil and vegetation explained 82.5% of the variance in patch structure. Spatially, R. soongorica shifted from a clumped to a random pattern on the landscape towards the MAP gradient, and heterogeneity in the surface soil properties (the ratio of biological soil crust (BSC) to bare gravels (BG)) determined the R. soongorica population distribution pattern in the middle and lower HRB. A conceptual model, which integrated water availability and plant facilitation and competition effects, was revealed that R. soongorica changed from a flexible water use strategy in high precipitation regions to a consistent water use strategy in low precipitation areas. Our study provides a comprehensive quantification of the variance in shrub patch structure along a precipitation gradient and may improve our understanding of vegetation pattern dynamics in the Gobi Desert under future climate change.
The precipitation patterns in flood season over China associated with the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are investigated, especially in the eastern China, using the rather long period rainfall data in this century. The results show that there were remarkable differences between the precipitation patterns in flood seasons of ENSO warm phase (El Niño year) and cold phase (La Niña year), as well as between the patterns in El Niño years and their following years. The most parts of China received below normal rainfall in flood season of the onset years of El Niño events, but the coastal area of Southeast China received above normal amounts. Comparatively, the most parts of China received above normal rainfall in flood season of the following years of El Niño events, but the eastern part of the reaches among the Huanghe (Yellow) River, the Huaihe River and the Haihe River, and the Northeast China received less. During ENSO cold phase, the reaches of the Changjiang (Yangtze) River and the North China received more amounts than normal rainfall in flood season of the onset years of La Niña events, and the other regions of China received less. In the following years of La Niña events, the coastal area of the Southeast China, the most part of the Northeast China and the regions between the Huanghe River and the Huaihe River received more precipitation during flood seasons, but the other parts received below normal precipitation. 相似文献
The main reasons for the high content of inorganic N and its increase by several times in the Changjiang River and its mouth during the last 40 years were analysed in this work. The inorganic N in precipitation in the Changjiang River catchment mainly comes from gaseous loss of fertilizer N, N resulting from the increases of population and livestock, and from high temperature combustions of fossil fuels. N from precipitation is the first N source in the Changjiang River water and the only direct cause of high content of inorganic N in the Changjiang River and its mouth. The lost N in gaseous form and from agriculture non-point sources fertilizer comprised about 60% of annual consumption of fertilizer N in the Changjiang River catchment and were key factors controlling the high content of inorganic N in the Changjiang River mouth. The fate of the N in precipitation and other N sources in the Changjiang River catchment are also discussed in this paper. 相似文献
Monitoring groundwater quality by cost-effective techniques is important as the aquifers are vulnerable to contamination from
the uncontrolled discharge of sewage, agricultural and industrial activities. Faulty planning and mismanagement of irrigation
schemes are the principle reasons of groundwater quality deterioration. This study presents an artificial neural network (ANN)
model predicting concentration of nitrate, the most common pollutant in shallow aquifers, in groundwater of Harran Plain.
The samples from 24 observation wells were monthly analysed for 1 year. Nitrate was found in almost all groundwater samples
to be significantly above the maximum allowable concentration of 50 mg/L, probably due to the excessive use of artificial
fertilizers in intensive agricultural activities. Easily measurable parameters such as temperature, electrical conductivity,
groundwater level and pH were used as input parameters in the ANN-based nitrate prediction. The best back-propagation (BP)
algorithm and neuron numbers were determined for optimization of the model architecture. The Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm
was selected as the best of 12 BP algorithms and optimal neuron number was determined as 25. The model tracked the experimental
data very closely (R = 0.93). Hence, it is possible to manage groundwater resources in a more cost-effective and easier way with the proposed
model application. 相似文献
Geospatial technology is increasing in demand for many applications in geosciences. Spatial variability of the bed/hard rock
is vital for many applications in geotechnical and earthquake engineering problems such as design of deep foundations, site
amplification, ground response studies, liquefaction, microzonation etc. In this paper, reduced level of rock at Bangalore,
India is arrived from the 652 boreholes data in the area covering 220 km2. In the context of prediction of reduced level of rock in the subsurface of Bangalore and to study the spatial variability
of the rock depth, Geostatistical model based on Ordinary Kriging technique, Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Support Vector
Machine (SVM) models have been developed. In Ordinary Kriging, the knowledge of the semi-variogram of the reduced level of
rock from 652 points in Bangalore is used to predict the reduced level of rock at any point in the subsurface of the Bangalore,
where field measurements are not available. A new type of cross-validation analysis developed proves the robustness of the
Ordinary Kriging model. ANN model based on multi layer perceptrons (MLPs) that are trained with Levenberg–Marquardt backpropagation
algorithm has been adopted to train the model with 90% of the data available. The SVM is a novel type of learning machine
based on statistical learning theory, uses regression technique by introducing loss function has been used to predict the
reduced level of rock from a large set of data. In this study, a comparative study of three numerical models to predict reduced
level of rock has been presented and discussed. 相似文献