Vineyard evaporative fraction based on eddy covariance in an arid desert region of Northwest China

Studying farmland evaporative fraction (EF) plays an important role in interpreting the components of energy budget and evapotranspiration (ET). The present study examines the pattern of vineyard EF after monitoring energy components by eddy covariance for 2 years, and estimates the crop ET by EF in the arid desert region of Northwest China. Main results indicate that EF during daytime is nearly constant on sunny days when the available energy exceeds 200 W m⁻², but EF becomes relatively unsteady when the available energy is lower than 200 W m⁻². Furthermore, daytime average EF is relatively low in the early growth stage, nearly constant in the mid-later stage, and significantly reduced in the later stage; Moreover, mean EF in different periods of daytime is in good agreement with daytime average EF, mean EF during 10:00–15:00 h is relatively close to daytime average EF and mean EF during 14:00–15:00 h is approximately equal to daytime average EF. The estimated daytime ET from mean EF during 14:00–15:00 h is highly correlated to the measured ET by Bowen ratio-energy balance though the value is partially underestimated. This study demonstrated that daytime ET can be estimated from midday EF and the relationship can be used to guide irrigation practice in the arid region.     

Evaluating eddy covariance method by large-scale weighing lysimeter in a maize field of northwest China

Accurate determination of evapotranspiration (ET) is useful to develop precise irrigation scheduling. Although eddy covariance (EC) is a direct method which is widely used to measure ET, its performance in arid region of northwest China is not clear. In this study, ET measured by EC (ET_EC) was compared with that by large-scale weighing lysimeter (ET_L) during the whole growing season of maize in 2009. Energy balance ratio was 0.84 for daytime fluxes, indicating that lack of energy balance closure occurred, so daytime ET_EC was adjusted by Bowen-ratio forced closure method. Compared to the corresponding ET_L, half-hourly daytime ET_EC was underestimated by 21.8% without the adjustment and 4.8% with the adjustment. Furthermore, nighttime ET_EC was adjusted using filtering/interpolation method. Mean error between half-hourly nighttime ET_EC and ET_L decreased from 30.2% without the adjustment to 10.3% with the adjustment. After such adjustment of day and night measurements, daily ET_EC was underestimated by 6.2% compared to ET_L. These results indicated that the adjusted ET_EC well matched with the ET_L. Moreover, the discrepancy of adjusted total ET_EC and ET_L was decreased to 3.2% after subtracting the overestimated ET by lysimeter resulting from irrigation and heavy rainfall events. Thus, after appropriate adjustments of observations, eddy covariance method is accurate in estimating maize ET in the arid region of northwest China.     

Evapotranspiration and crop coefficient of spring maize with plastic mulch using eddy covariance in northwest China

Spring maize under plastic mulch is the staple food crop in northwest China. Studying its evapotranspiration (ET) and crop coefficient (K_c) is important for managing water-saving irrigation in the region. Eddy covariance (EC) was applied to measure spring maize ET in 2007 in northwest China, focusing on the characteristics of the maize ET and K_c processes under plastic mulch. An interesting result was that a higher K_c in this study relative to the value of FAO 56 was presented in the mid and late season, e.g. average K_c was 1.46, 1.39 and 1.22 during the heading, filling and maturity stage, respectively. This result was mainly due to that (1) the plastic mulch had an effect on anti-senescence of maize and great green leaf still existed before the harvest; (2) the FAO 56 PM model may underestimate the reference crop ET in the mid and late season of maize in the region; (3) the planting density was higher in the study, which was about 374,800 plants ha⁻¹. Though K_c during the mid and late season was high, a high water use efficiency of 25.2 kg ha⁻¹ mm⁻¹ was still obtained in the study. Our study confirmed that plastic mulch has beneficial effect on improving maize water use efficiency in this severe water shortage region of northwest China.     

Using the dual approach of FAO-56 for partitioning ET into soil and plant components for olive orchards in a semi-arid region

The main goal of this research was to evaluate the potential of the dual approach of FAO-56 for estimating actual crop evapotranspiration (AET) and its components (crop transpiration and soil evaporation) of an olive (Olea europaea L.) orchard in the semi-arid region of Tensift-basin (central of Morocco). Two years (2003 and 2004) of continuous measurements of AET with the eddy-covariance technique were used to test the performance of the model. The results showed that, by using the local values of basal crop coefficients, the approach simulates reasonably well AET over two growing seasons. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) between measured and simulated AET values during 2003 and 2004 were respectively about 0.54 and 0.71 mm per day. The basal crop coefficient (K_cb) value obtained for the olive orchard was similar in both seasons with an average of 0.54. This value was lower than that suggested by the FAO-56 (0.62). Similarly, the single approach of FAO-56 has been tested in the previous work (Er-Raki et al., 2008) over the same study site and it has been shown that this approach also simulates correctly AET when using the local crop coefficient and under no stress conditions.Since the dual approach predicts separately soil evaporation and plant transpiration, an attempt was made to compare the simulated components of AET with measurements obtained through a combination of eddy covariance and scaled-up sap flow measurements. The results showed that the model gives an acceptable estimate of plant transpiration and soil evaporation. The associated RMSE of plant transpiration and soil evaporation were 0.59 and 0.73 mm per day, respectively.Additionally, the irrigation efficiency was investigated by comparing the irrigation scheduling design used by the farmer to those recommended by the FAO model. It was found that although the amount of irrigation applied by the farmer (800 mm) during the growing season of olives was twice that recommended one by the FAO model (411 mm), the vegetation suffered from water stress during the summer. Such behaviour can be explained by inadequate distribution of irrigation. Consequently, the FAO model can be considered as a potentially useful tool for planning irrigation schedules on an operational basis.