Simulating daily, monthly and annual water balances in a land surface model using alternative root water uptake schemes

Hydrological simulations at multi-temporal time scales by a widely used land surface model (LSM) are investigated under contrasting vegetation and meteorological conditions. Our investigation focuses particularly on the effects of two different representations of root water uptake and root profile on simulated evapotranspiration (ET) and soil moisture by the Integrated BIosphere Simulator (IBIS). For this purpose, multi-year eddy covariance measurements, collected at four flux-tower sites across North America, were used to gauge IBIS simulations with: (a) its standard version (IBIS2.1), in which static root water uptake (RWU) and root profile schemes are incorporated; and (b) a modified version in which dynamic RWU and root profile schemes replaces the static schemes used in the standard version. Overall, our results suggest that the modified version of the model performs more realistically than the standard version, particularly when high atmospheric demand for evaporation is combined with high atmospheric vapour pressure deficit and low soil water availability. The overall correlation between simulated and measured monthly ET rates at the simulated sites reached 0.87 and 0.91 for the standard and the modified versions, respectively. Our results also show that the incorporation of the dynamic RWU in IBIS yields improved simulations of ET under very dry conditions, when soil moisture falls down to very low levels. This suggests that adequate representations of vegetation responses to drought are needed in LSMs as many state of the art climate models projections of future climate indicate more frequent and/or more intense drought events occurring in some regions of the globe. Our analysis also highlighted the urgent need for adequate methodologies to correct field measurements that exhibit energy imbalances in order to provide rigorous assessments of land surface model simulations of heat and mass exchanges between the land surface and the atmosphere.     

Qualité des eaux du cours principal de la Medjerda (Tunisie et Algérie) et trois de ses affluents Nord

Résumé

Une étude a été effectuée dans la zone Nord-Ouest du bassin versant de la Medjerda avec pour objectif de fournir de nouvelles connaissances sur la qualité des eaux ainsi que sur le type de relation qui peut exister entre les variables physico-chimiques, bactériologiques et les indices de diversité/densité de la méiofaune. Les résultats montrent une dégradation de la qualité du cours principal de la Medjerda et de trois de ses affluents Nord (augmentation de la salinité, teneur en nitrate, matière organique, coliformes…). Les indices de diversité et d’équitabilité suivent cette évolution régressive des variables physico-chimiques et apportent de nouvelles connaissances sur le type et la qualité du sédiment.

Editeur Z.W. Kundzewicz ; Editeur associé B. Touaïbia