Soil water storage benchmarking for environmental monitoring
Date
2009-02-25
Authors
Biswas, A.
Si, B.C.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
ORCID
Type
Presentation
Degree Level
Abstract
Soil water, a key hydrological factor, controls the fate and transport of nutrients and pollutants in
soil as well as emission of green house gases from soil. Inherent spatial variability of soil water
requires multiple monitoring sites for soil water which is expansive in terms of money, time and
labour. The objective of this study was to identify the hydrologically time stable location
(benchmark point) and spatial pattern of soil water storage in a hummocky landscape in semiarid
climate. Soil water was measured in field for consecutive two years (11 measurements) by
Neutron Moisture Meter (NMM) along a 128 point transect established at St Denis National
Wildlife Area, Saskatchewan, Canada. Soil water measurements were taken at every 20 cm up to
the depth of 1.2 m at every 4.5 m on the transect. The NMM was calibrated for this site and the
calibration equation was used to calculate the soil water storage at different depths. High
Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient between different dates of measurements indicated the
spatial similarity of soil water storage pattern over time. Similar environmental events showed
more persistent spatial pattern between measurements than different environmental events. The
stability or the similarity of the rank of individual observations in the probability distribution
functions over time indicated temporal stability of soil water storage pattern. While, 22nd point
from the origin of the transect maintained the rank of soil water storage overtime for 0-20 cm
with very low measurement variability, 4th point maintained the rank for 0-60 cm and 0-120 cm
depth. The similarity or persistency of rank in water storage pattern and the mean water content
over field at multiple times helped in identifying representative moisture benchmark site, which
can be used for environmental monitoring and modelling, irrigation scheduling, nutrient
recommendations and predicting green house gasses.
Description
Keywords
temporal stability
Citation
Degree
Department
Program
Advisor
Committee
Citation
Part Of
Soils and Crops Workshop