Digital terrain analysis and simulation modeling to assess spatial variability of soil water balance and crop production

Rationale and Background Model Description References The assessment of soil water spatial patterns is crucial for understanding hydrology and crop yield variability in agricultural fields. We describe a newly developed spatial soil water balance model, SALUS-TERRAE, consisting of a functional soil water balance model and a terrain analysis system (TERRAE). The model predicts a two-dimensional soil water balance where the lateral surface and subsurface flow of water is routed across the landscape using the irregular element network created by TERRAE. Surface runoff and subsurface lateral movement is routed from one element to the next starting from the top element and moving downward. The spatial soil water balance model allows the presence of different soil types to a maximum equal to the number of the elements. SALUS-TERRAE was applied on an agricultural field with rolling terrain where soil water content was extensively measured. The model performed well when compared to the field measured soil water content for the entire growing season. Due to the complexity of weather, spatial pattern of topography, soil and vegetation, soil water within a field is highly variable in space and time as result of several processes occurring at various ranges of scales. Spatial variation in soil water is often the cause of crop yield spatial variability due to its influence on the uniformity of the plant stand at emergence and for in-season water stress. The prediction of the spatial variability of soil water is important for various applications in the agricultural and hydrological sciences (i.e. erosion modeling, chemicals leaching to groundwater, flood warming, precision agriculture etc.). The approaches used till now to assess spatial patterns of soil moisture have basically been: (i) field measurements (ii) measurements using microwave remote sensing from a variety of platforms; (iii) wetness indices and (iv) hydrological modeling. Each group presents advantages and limitations. The limitations of these methods provided the idea of creating a digital terrain model DTM that would include the topographic effect on the soil water balance and would be coupled with a functional soil water balance to spatially simulate the soil water balance became clear from the. This lead to the development of SALUS_TERRAE, a DTM for predicting the spatial and temporal variability of soil water balance. Conclusions SALUS-TERRAE [Basso, 2000] was created combining the Ritchie vertical-soil-water balance model [Ritchie, 1998] with TERRAE, a digital terrain model developed by Gallant [1999]. SALUS-TERRAE is spatial soil water balance model composed by a vertical and newly developed lateral components of the water balance. The model requires a DEM for partitioning the landscape into a series of interconnected irregular elements, weather and soil information for the soil water balance simulation. SALUS-TERRAE is designed to predict spatial and temporal variability of evaporation, infiltration, water distribution, drainage, surface and subsurface runoff for the soil profile using a bucket approach on a daily basis for each element of the network. TERRAE is a new method for creating element networks where landscape depressions are included. TERRAE constructs a network of elements by creating flow lines and contours from a grid DEM. TERRAE can create contours at any elevation in the grid and does not rely on pre-defined contours. Each element created by TERRAE is an irregular polygon with contours as the upper and lower edges and flow lines as the left and right edges. The elements are connected so that the flow out of one element flows into the adjacent downslope element. The proportion of flow is determined by the relative lengths of contour between the two elements. The element network created by executing TERRAE is used by the spatial soil water balance model, TERRAE-SALUS. Surface runoff is routed from one element to the next starting from the top element and moving downward. The surface runoff produced by each element is moved laterally to the next downslope element. The amount of surface runoff is calculated by multiplying the surface runoff of the upslope element by the area of the element. This amount of water is added onto the next downslope elements as additional precipitation. If there is not a downslope element, the surface water runs off to the field outlet. The amount of surface runoff is calculated by multiplying the surface runoff of the upslope element by the area of the element. This amount of water is added onto the next downslope elements as additional precipitation. If there is not a downslope element, the surface water runs off to the field outlet. The subsurface lateral flow is computed using the following equation: SLF= Kef (dH/dx) * (Aup/Adw) whereSFL is the subsurface lateral flow (cm day-1), Kef is the saturated hydraulic conductivity calculated as harmonic mean between Ksat of the upslope element and the downslope element (cm day-1),dH is the distance between the saturated layer and the soil surface dx is the distance between the center of the upslope element and the downslope element, Aup is the area of the upslope element (m2) and Adw is the area of the downslope element (m2). The hydraulic head (dH) is calculated by the soil water balance model, while dx is calculated by TERRAE.