Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

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Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agee

The eﬀects of biodegradable and plastic ﬁlm mulching on nitrogen uptake,
distribution, and leaching in a drip-irrigated sandy ﬁeld

TNing Chena, Xianyue Lia,*, Jirí Šimůnekb, Haibin Shia, Zongjiang Dinga, Yuehong ZhangaabCollege of Water Conservancy and Civil Engineering, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Huhhot, 010018, China
Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords:
Drip irrigation
Biodegradable ﬁlm mulching
Plastic ﬁlm mulching
Nitrate nitrogen
N-fertilizer application
Sandy ﬁeld

Drip irrigation under plastic ﬁlm mulching with applications of the N-fertilizer is an excellent agricultural
strategy, resulting in saving irrigation water, improving N use eﬃciency, and increasing crop yield. However, theﬁlm residue and nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-N) losses are the leading cause of non-point pollution in agriculturalﬁelds. To promote the development of sustainable agriculture, the HYDRUS (2D/3D) model was ﬁrst calibrated
and then validated using experimental data from 2016 and 2017, respectively, collected in the drip-irrigatedsandy ﬁeld with plastic ﬁlm mulching (PFM), biodegradable ﬁlm mulching (BFM), and no ﬁlm mulching (NFM).
Additionally, the NO3-N spatial and temporal distributions, uptake, leaching, and use eﬃciency (NUE) under
PFM, BFM, and NFM with 280 kg ha−1 of the N-fertilizer (the local recommendation) were evaluated using bothobserved and simulated data. These factors were also assessed under BFM with 210 (75 % of the recommended
value) and 140 kg ha-1 (50 % of the recommended value) of the N-fertilizer. The results of numerical simulations
were in good agreement with observations, with the RMSE, R2, and NSE during veriﬁcation being 0.01-0.08 mg
cm-3, 0.62-0.87, and 0.68-0.94, respectively. When the same amount of the N-fertilizer (280 kg ha−1) wasapplied in each treatment, there were no apparent diﬀerences in NO3-N concentrations in the soil proﬁle, cumulative NO3-N uptake by corn (CNU), and cumulative NO3-N leaching (CNL) in the 100-cm soil depth between
the BFM280 and PFM280 scenarios (the subscript indicates the amount of the N-fertilizer) during the earlygrowing season (Day After Sowing [DAS] of 0–78 in 2016 and DAS of 0–92 in 2017). However, CNU and CNL
were higher, and the NO3-N concentrations in the upper soil layer (0−40 cm soil layer) lower in these two
scenarios than in the NFM280 scenario. The NO3-N concentrations in the topsoil layer (the 0−20 cm soil layer) in
the BFM280 scenario were 3.9 % higher than in the PFM280 scenario during DAS 93–154 in 2017 due to thedisintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm and 26.3 % lower during DAS 79–155 in 2016 because of intensive
rainfall. Additionally, the highest NUE (50.9 kg kg-1, the average value for two years) was found when 75 % of
the recommended N-fertilizer (210 kg ha−1) was applied. Therefore, an application of 210 kg ha−1 of the Nfertilizer in the BFM scenario can be recommended for sandy farmland to avoid plastic pollution, increase NUE,
and eﬀectively promote the development of sustainable agriculture.

1. Introduction
With worldwide economic development, population growth, andregional water shortages, agricultural production has, in recent years,
increasingly focused on saving agricultural water and improving crop
yields. Drip irrigation under plastic ﬁlm mulching (PFM) has been
proven to be an excellent irrigation strategy with many beneﬁts andadvantages compared to no ﬁlm mulching, such as saving irrigationwater (Vázquez et al., 2006), preserving soil water (Berger et al., 2013),
improving soil temperature (Filipovic et al., 2016), promoting early
germination and harvest (Novello and Palma, 2008), and signiﬁcantly⁎

increasing crop yields (Monday et al., 2015; Ospanbayev et al., 2017;
He et al., 2018). Additionally, it can be used under diﬀerent climate
conditions and in diﬀerent soil regions (Monteiro et al., 2013; Sharma
et al., 2017; Fawibe et al., 2019; Qin et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019a,b),
especially in arid, semi-arid, and sandy regions with low precipitation,high evaporation, and a limited soil water and fertilizer retention (Zhouet al., 2017; Dlamini et al., 2017). Therefore, drip irrigation under PFM
has been used worldwide, including Japan (Fawibe et al., 2019), Pakistan (Nasrullah et al., 2011), Spain (Jordi et al., 1995), and China(Guo et al., 2019).
The largest user of the plastic ﬁlm in the world is China (Daryanto

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lixianyue80@126.com (X. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2020.106817
Received 1 September 2019; Received in revised form 27 December 2019; Accepted 6 January 20200167-8809/ © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

et al., 2017), where the amount of the plastic ﬁlm applied on crops has
increased to 14.7 × 105 t, and the plastic mulching area has reached
184 × 105 ha (Gao et al., 2019). However, recycling of plastic ﬁlm
residues is a high-cost and challenging process, which causes the accumulation of plastic ﬁlm residues in the soil at a rate of about 71.9259.1 kg ha−1 (Liu et al., 2014; Yan et al., 2014).
Generally, most plastic ﬁlms are made of low-density polyethylenethat needs at least several hundred years to completely degrade in soil
(Khalil et al., 2018; Henry et al., 2019). When the plastic residue in soil
increases above a certain threshold value, it incurs signiﬁcant negative
impacts on soil environment and agricultural production, such as damaging soil structure (Gao et al., 2019), decreasing soil water inﬁltration (Jiang et al., 2017), retarding soil water and nutrient movement(Dong et al., 2013; Jiang et al., 2017), restricting root growth (IbarraJiménez et al., 2011; Qi et al., 2018), and reducing crop yield (Donget al., 2013; He et al., 2018; Gao et al., 2019).
Biodegradable ﬁlms could eﬀectively overcome these problems because they are mainly made of degradable materials (Henry et al.,2003), such as starch-based materials, cellulose acetate (CA), cellulose
nitrate (CN), and mixed cellulose ﬁlter membrane (CN-CA) (Moreno
et al., 2017; Khalil et al., 2018) that can disintegrate directly into CO2
and H2O by soil microbes without causing any signiﬁcant environmental damage. Therefore, biodegradable ﬁlms are regarded as valuable alternatives to plastic ﬁlms that have been adopted in many
countries, such as Norway (Touchaleaume et al., 2016), Japan (Wen,2005), China (Wang et al., 2019a,b), and Spain (Mari et al., 2019). A
large number of studies have shown that soil temperatures and soil
water contents under biodegradable ﬁlm mulching (BFM) were similar
as under PFM during the early growing season, decreased a little during
the middle crop growth stage due to the partial degradation of thebiodegradable ﬁlm, and decreased signiﬁcantly during the late crop
growth stage due to the considerable ﬁlm degradation (Gu et al., 2017;
Saglam et al., 2017；Sun et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2019a,b). Additionally, the rate of ﬁlm degradation can be adjusted by altering ingredients of the biodegradable ﬁlm to regulate and control soil watercontents and soil temperatures during the crop growth season (Yinet al., 2019).
The eﬀects of BFM on soil water ﬂow and soil heat movement havebeen documented in many studies (Saglam et al., 2017; Sun et al., 2018;
Zheng et al., 2019). However, there has been little focus on the
movement of soil nitrogen under BFM, especially of NO3-N, the mostessential nutrient for crop growth. At present, the research focus is mostfrequently on decreasing NO3-N leaching and increasing the N use efﬁciency (NUE) under PFM and no ﬁlm mulching (NFM) (Ruidisch et al.,2013; Egrinya et al., 2013; Li et al., 2017), i.e., on optimizing fertigation rates, amounts, and frequency so that NO3-N leaching to groundwater is minimized while the crop yield is increased (Filipovic et al.,2016; Zhang et al., 2012).
Mulching can signiﬁcantly decrease soil evaporation and topsoil
NO3-N concentrations (Ma et al., 2018; Wang and Xing, 2016), increase
nitrogen uptake by crop roots and its transport to stem, leaves, andfruits (Zheng et al., 2018), and decrease nitrogen leaching below theroot zone (Ma et al., 2018). Although nitrogen movement, uptake, andleaching have been often studied both experimentally and numericallyfor diﬀerent conditions involving diﬀerent irrigation amounts, diﬀerent
fertilizer rates and levels, and diﬀerent mulching types, these studies
mainly focused on NO3-N dynamics in either un-mulched ﬁelds or inﬁelds mulched with the plastic (i.e., not disintegrating) ﬁlm. There wasvery little similar research about NO3-N dynamics under BFM. NO3-N
dynamics under BFM is signiﬁcantly aﬀected by various environmental
factors due to the disintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm, especially indripped-irrigated sandy soils. Additionally, no comparative analysis has
been carried out in drip-irrigated sandy ﬁelds that would quantitatively
evaluate diﬀerences in NO3-N distributions, uptake, and leaching underdiﬀerent mulching types and for diﬀerent N-fertilizer amounts under
BFM.

Although the eﬀects of diﬀerent fertigation and mulching strategies
on nitrogen could be evaluated using ﬁeld experiments, this is a timeconsuming and costly approach. In contrast, validated numericalmodels can be easily applied to ﬁnd optimal mulching, irrigation, andfertigation strategies for a given soil, climate, and environmental conditions. For example, Azad et al. (2018) used the HYDRUS model simulations to show that NO3-N leaching was minimized during thefertigation period when the irrigation rate of 0.8 Lh−1 and theminimum duration of fertigation at the end of irrigation were used.
Similarly, Karandish and Šimůnek (2017) used HYDRUS to simulate
drip irrigation for 11 irrigation levels and 8 nitrogen fertilization rates
and showed that NO3-N leaching from the topsoil layer (0−20 cm)
increased with an increase in fertigation rates, while N uptake increased
as well. They also showed that the fertilization rate of 200 kg ha−1
reduced NO3-N leaching by 30 % compared to the fertigation rate of
250 kg ha−1.
The speciﬁc objectives of this study therefore are: 1) to calibrate andvalidate HYDRUS (2D/3D) using the NO3-N experimental data collectedduring the crop growing season under BFM, PFM, and NFM, 2) tocompare diﬀerences and similarities in NO3-N concentrations, their
two-dimensional spatial distributions, and N balances under BFM, PFM,
and NFM for the same N-fertilizer application (i.e., 280 kg ha−1), and
3) to analyze N uptake, NO3-N leaching, NUE, and N balances under
BFM for three diﬀerent (i.e., 280, 210, and 140 kg ha−1) N-fertilizer
applications.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Field experiment
A two-year (during 2016–2017) ﬁeld investigation was carried out
in a 2400 m2 (40 × 60 m) cornﬁeld at the Muleitan experimental
station (106°9′-107°10′E, 40°9′-40°57′N) located in the Ulanbuh sandy
region, 50 km away from the Yellow River, China (Fig. 1a). Mean annual sunlight in the area can reach 3180 h, mean annual precipitation is
103 mm, and mean annual potential evaporation is 2259 mm. The soilin the experimental ﬁeld is classiﬁed as sandy soil with an average bulk
density of 1.55 g cm−3 (Table 1) and the average ﬁeld capacity (θfc) in
the 0−100 cm soil layer of 0.224 (the volumetric water content). Soil
total nitrogen and organic matter in the upper soil layer (0−40 cm)
were 0.3 and 5.2 g kg-1, respectively, and the C:N ratio was 10.1.
Available nitrogen, available potassium, and available phosphorus were
18.2, 76.9, and 5.1 mg kg-1, respectively.
Corn seed (Zea mays L) was sown on April 28 and May 1 and harvested on September 30 and October 1 in 2016 and 2017, respectively.
The planting pattern was “one ﬁlm, one tube, and two rows” with croprows 50 cm apart and the crop spacing of 30 cm (Fig. 1b). The experimental design was a completely random design comprising of three
replicates of ﬁve treatments, i.e., 15 ﬁeld plots. Diﬀerent treatments
included three mulching treatments with a locally recommended Nfertilizer application (280 kg of N per ha): plastic ﬁlm mulching(PFM280), biodegradable ﬁlm mulching (BFM280), and no ﬁlm mulching(NFM280), which are either impermeable, partially permeable, or fully
permeable to evaporation and rainfall, respectively. The last twotreatments involved BFM with an application of either 75 % or 50 % of
the recommended N-fertilizer amount. There were thus three levels of
applied N-fertilizer under BFM: 280 kg ha−1 (BFM280), 210 kg ha-1
(BFM210), and 140 kg ha-1 (BFM140). Before sowing, 120 kg ha-1 of
Diammonium phosphate ((NH4)2HPO4, N ≥ 18 %), and 120 kg ha-1 ofPotassium sulfate (K2SO4) were applied in the ﬁeld as basal fertilizer.
The Carbamide solution (CO(NH2)2, N ≥ 32 %) as topdressing wasapplied in the ﬁeld in the elongation stage (30 % of the total N-fertilizer), the tasseling stage (30 % of the total N-fertilizer), and the ﬁllingstage (20 % of the total N-fertilizer), each time accompanied with drip
irrigation. Irrigation was performed with a single line of a drip tapewith an emitter discharge of 2.4 L h-1 and a distance between emitters
2

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

Fig. 1. The geographical location of the experimental ﬁeld (a), the modeling domain, boundary conditions, and locations of sensors (P1 and P2) (b), and the cropping
pattern (c) under biodegradable ﬁlm mulching (BFM).

2.2. Field monitoringof 30 cm. The water meter (with an accuracy of 0.001 L) was set up tomonitor water ﬂow. The same irrigation amount (30 mm for each irrigation event) was applied to each plot once every 7–15 days, and 11
and 13 irrigation events were used throughout the growing seasons of2016 and 2017, respectively.

Meteorological data in the experimental ﬁeld, including daily precipitation, solar radiation, air temperatures, air humidity, and windspeed, were collected using the automatic meteorological station (Onset
Computer Inc.; U30, Hobo, USA). Reference crop evapotranspiration(ET0) was then calculated using the Penman-Monteith approach(Monteith, 1981). Daily potential evapotranspiration rates wereTable 1
Soil physical properties and soil hydraulic parameters (the residual water content θr, the saturated water content θs, the shape parameters (α, n, and l), and thesaturated hydraulic conductivity Ks) of the three soil layers of the experiment ﬁeld.
Depth (cm)

0-20
20–40
40–100

Soil particle size distributions (%)
Clay

Silt

Sand

8.6
8.5
7.2

2.9
2.2
2.7

88.5
89.3
90.1

Soil texture

Sand
Sand
Sand

Bulk density

θr

θs

α

n

Ks

l

(g m−3)(cm3 cm−3)(cm3 cm−3)(cm−1)(-)(cm day−1)

(-)

1.58
1.59
1.41

0.049
0.049
0.061

0.371
0.367
0.426

0.035
0.035
0.029

1.63
1.81
2.03

63.4
94.7
214.9

0.5
0.5
0.5

3

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

direction perpendicular to the drip tape, the mulching region was divided into three parts R1, R2, and R3 (Fig. 1b), and was photographedusing a digital camera (Canon EOS Rebel T3, Japan) from a distance ofabout 25 cm between the camera and the surface of the biodegradable
ﬁlm under daylight conditions once every 20 days (Chen et al., 2019).
Images were processed using a geometric correction and a backgroundsubtraction, and the average disintegrated area of the biodegradable
ﬁlm in both years was calculated using the Auto CAD 2010 software(Autodesk Inc., USA). The disintegrated area was 13.1, 5.2, and 1.2 %on day 60 after sowing in regions R1, R2, and R3, respectively, 26.5,
11.5, and 6.8 % after 80 days, 48.3, 28.5, and 10.2 % after 100 days,
83.0, 37.6, and 16.5 % after 120 days, 100, 46.6, and 20.7 % after 140
days, and 100, 53.0 and 26.1 % on the last day of the experiment (DAS
155 for 2016 and DAS 154 for 2017). Values for other days were obtained using linear interpolation. The disintegration of the plastic ﬁlm
was negligible compared with that of the biodegradable ﬁlm, and it was
ignored in the simulation.

Fig. 2. Potential evaporation (Ep), potential transpiration (Tp), and precipitation (P) during the 2016 and 2017 growing seasons.

calculated by multiplying ET0 by Kc (the crop coeﬃcient) that weretaken from the FAO paper (No.56) for corn, i.e., 0.30 during the earlyseason, 1.2 during the mid-season, and 0.35 during the later season(Allen et al., 1998). Additionally, potential evaporation (Ep) and transpiration (Tp) ﬂuxes were calculated from potential evapotranspiration
using Beer’s law (Campbell and Norman, 1989) (Fig. 2).
Soil water contents (SWCs) were measured using TDR probes (IMKO
GmbH Inc., IPH, TRIME-PICO, Germany), which were installed under
the drip tape (P1) and in the middle of two rows of corn (P2) (Fig. 1b).
TDR measurements were taken once every 5–7 days at soil depths of
0–10, 10–20, 20–40, 40–60, and 60−100 cm. Additionally, a soil auger(Beijing New Landmark Soil Equipment Co., Ltd., 0301, XDB, CHN) wasused to obtain soil samples to measure SWCs at periodic intervals. SWCs
measured using TDR probes were further veriﬁed using the measurements on soil samples (Skaggs et al., 2004).
Soil sampling locations for NO3-N concentrations were the same as
for SWCs, and the sampling interval was about every two weeks. Soil
NO3-N concentrations were measured using the semi-micro Kjeldahl
method (Bremner and Keeney, 1965). Soil samples were shaken with 2
mol L−1 KCl (1:5 soil: solution ratio) for 1 h, and the obtained extract
was analyzed using an ultraviolet spectrophotometer (Beijing General
Instrument Co. LTD., TU-1901, General Instrument, CHN). Total N
uptake (in the corn stem, leaves, and grain) was determined on thesame dates; these samples were ﬁrst kept for 30 min at 105℃ temperature and then conserved at 75℃ temperature in the oven to reach aconstant weight. After crushing and sieving, a 0.2 g sample wasweighted by a weighing paper, digested with 5 mL of concentrated
H2SO4, and measured by a ﬂow analyzer (Brown ruby Inc., AA3, SEAL,
Germany). The semi-micro Kjeldahl method (Bremner and Keeney,1965) was applied to determine N uptake.
Self-made ﬁeld lysimeters and a PVC tube opened at the bottom
installed at a depth of 100 cm below the soil surface were used tomeasure vertical water ﬂuxes and soil solutions before corn seeding (Liet al., 2014, 2015a,b). It was necessary to clean the residual solution ineach instrument before each sampling, and the samples were collectedonce every 7–15 days throughout the growing season. Cumulative NO3N leaching (CNL) during particular time intervals was determined bymultiplying the NO3-N concentration of the leaching solution by corresponding water ﬂuxes.
The leaf area meter (Li-3000, LI−COR, USA) and a tape (with anaccuracy of 0.1 cm) were used to measure the corn leaf area and height,
respectively, once every 7–15 days and the leaf area index (LAI) was
calculated using the FAO method (Allen et al., 1998). Root samples
were collected from a soil transect utilizing a method of Li et al. (2017)
on June 12, June 25, July 11, and August 16 in 2016 and on June 8,
June 25, July 18, and August 20 in 2017. These samples were ﬁrst
washed oﬀ and then scanned using the WinRHIZO software. Whencrops reached physiological maturity, ten plants from each plot wererandomly harvested to determine the grain number per cob and the
100-grain weight in the harvesting area of 20 m2 (Mueller and Vyn,
2018).
Since the disintegrated area of the biodegradable ﬁlm varied in the

2.3. Modeling software and input parameters2.3.1. Governing equations of water ﬂow and solute transport
Numerical modeling of soil water ﬂow and solute transport was
performed using the HYDRUS (2D/3D) software (Šimunek et al., 2016)
for appropriate initial and boundary conditions and soil heterogeneities
in the two-dimensional domain (Fig. 1b). Water ﬂow dynamics in avariably-saturated porous medium was solved using a numerical solution of the Richards equation, which was deﬁned as:

∂θ
∂ ⎡
∂h
∂ ⎡
∂h
=
+ 1⎞ ⎤ − S (h)K (h) ⎤ +K (h) ⎛
∂t
∂x ⎣
∂x ⎦
∂z ⎢
∂z
⎝
⎠⎥
⎣
⎦

(1)

−3

where θ is the volumetric water content (cm cm ), h is the pressure
head (cm), K is the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity (cm day-1), t is
time (day), S is the root water uptake term (cm3 cm-3 day-1), x is thehorizontal coordinate, and z is the vertical coordinate. Actual root
water uptake S is calculated using the potential uptake rate and a water
stress factor (Feddes et al., 1978):3

S (h) = α (h)⋅b (x , z , t )⋅Tp LT(2)where α(h) is a dimensionless stress response function (-), Tp is thepotential transpiration rate (cm day−1), b(x,z,t) is the normalized root
water uptake distribution function (cm-2), and LT is the length of the soil
surface associated with transpiration (cm).
The solute transport equations (for NH4-N and NO3-N) consider theadvective-dispersive transport in the liquid phase. In this study, thepartial diﬀerential equations governing non-equilibrium transport ofsolutes involved in a sequential ﬁrst-order decay chain during transientwater ﬂow in variably-saturated rigid porous media are simpliﬁed asfollows (Šimůnek et al., 2016):
For NH4-N:

∂θc1
∂s
∂ ⎛
∂c
∂ ⎛
∂c
∂ ⎛
∂c
+ρ 1 =
θDxx 1 ⎞ +θDxz 1 ⎞ +θDzx 1 ⎞
∂t
∂t
∂x ⎝
∂x ⎠
∂x ⎝
∂z ⎠
∂z ⎝
∂x ⎠
∂ ⎛
∂c
θDzz 1 ⎞−
∂z ⎝
∂z ⎠
∂
qz c1 ⎞∂qc1−⎛⎜ x +
⎟ − μ θc1 − μ ρs1 − Sc 1
l
s
∂
x
∂z ⎠
⎝
+

(3)

For NO3-N:

∂θc2
∂ ⎛
∂c
∂ ⎛
∂c
∂ ⎛
∂c
∂ ⎛
∂c
=
θDxx 2 ⎞ +θDxz 2 ⎞ +θDzx 2 ⎞ +θDzz 2 ⎞−
∂t
∂x ⎝
∂x ⎠
∂x ⎝
∂z ⎠
∂z ⎝
∂x ⎠
∂z ⎝
∂z ⎠
∂
q
c
∂
q
c
2
2
z
x
⎞⎟ + θμc1 − Sc 2
−⎛⎜
+
∂z ⎠
⎝ ∂x
(4)
where θ is the soil water content (cm3 cm−3), ρ is the bulk density of4Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

the soil (g cm−3), s1 is the adsorbed concentration of NH4-N (mg g-1),
Dxx, Dxz, Dzx, and Dzz are the components of the eﬀective dispersion
coeﬃcient tensor (cm2 D-1), c is the solute concentration (NH4-N or
NO3-N) in the liquid phase (mg cm−3), qx and qz are the components ofthe volumetric ﬂux density (cm d-1), μl and μs are the ﬁrst-order reaction
rate constants representing the nitriﬁcation process (d-1) in the liquidand solid phases, respectively, and S is a sink term (d-1). Eqs. (3) and (4)in general include the solute ﬂux due to dispersion, the solute ﬂux due
to convection with ﬂowing water, and nutrient uptake by roots, Sc (mgcm−3 d-1), which is associated with root water uptake S:

Sc 1 = S (h) c1

Sc 2 = S (h) c2

diﬀerent soil layers (0–20, 20–40, and 40−100 cm) were estimatedusing the Rosetta software package (Schaap et al., 2001). The initial
estimates of soil hydraulic parameters were based on the soil textural
distribution (i.e., percentages of sand, silt, and clay) and the bulk
density. These initial estimates of soil hydraulic parameters (α, n, andKs) for the three diﬀerent soil layers were further calibrated using an
inverse modeling technique (Lazarovitch et al., 2009). The calibrated
values of soil hydraulic parameters are shown in Table 1.
The solute transport in HYDRUS (2D/3D) is a relatively complex
process that may include nitriﬁcation, denitriﬁcation, volatilization,
immobilization, and mineralization. In this study, the denitriﬁcation
process was neglected because such a reaction mainly occurs undersaturated conditions (Ravikumar et al., 2011). Additionally, immobilization and mineralization in the sandy soil were also neglected,
similarly as in many other studies (e.g., Ramos et al., 2012; Tafteh andSepaskhah, 2012). Meanwhile, ammonia volatilization was also neglected since fertilizers were applied with irrigation water; a similarassumption was made in previous studies (e.g., Ramos et al., 2012). On
the other hand, the applied fertilizer ammonium nitrogen (NH4-N)
transforms ﬁrst into NO2-N, and then further to NO3-N. Since the residual concentration of NO2-N in the soil proﬁle was low, and nitriﬁcation of NO2-N to NO3-N is a relatively fast process, it can be assumed that NH4-N transforms directly into NO3-N, which is consistent
with many other studies (e.g., Wang et al., 2010; Tafteh and Sepaskhah,2012). This study also assumed that NO3-N did not adsorb and existed
only in the dissolved phase, while ammonium NH4-N adsorbed and waspresent in both solid and dissolved phases. The distribution coeﬃcient(Kd) were set to 0 and 3.5 cm3 g−1 for NO3-N and NH4-N, respectively(Hanson et al., 2006). The ﬁrst-order rate (nitriﬁcation) constants forsolutes in the liquid and solid phases in the sandy soil were set to 0.03
and 0.16 d−1, respectively (Castaldelli et al., 2018).
In the solute transport equation of HYDRUS (2D/3D), componentsof the dispersion tensors are calculated using longitudinal and transversal dispersivities (DL and DT, respectively) of the soil and the molecular diﬀusion coeﬃcient of the solute in free water. Longitudinal
dispersivities (DL) were considered to be 20 cm in the 0−20 cm soil
layer, 10 cm in the 20−40 cm soil layer, and 5 cm in the 40−100 cm
soil layer. Transverse dispersivities (DT) were assumed to be one-tenthof DL (e.g., Cote et al., 2003; Hanson et al., 2006; Ramos et al., 2012).
The molecular diﬀusion coeﬃcients of NH4-N and NO3-N in free water
were set to be 0.064 and 0.068 cm2 h−1, respectively (Cote et al., 2003;
Nakamura et al., 2004). Finally, csmax, the maximum allowed concentration for root nutrient uptake (Šimunek et al., 2016), was obtainedby comparing simulated and observed values of crop N uptake.

(5)

where c1 and c2 are the NH4-N and NO3-N concentrations taken up by
roots (mg cm−3).
2.3.2. Initial and boundary conditions
The two-dimensional transport domain was deﬁned as a rectangle
with a width of 50 cm and a depth of 100 cm (Fig. 1b). The SWC initialcondition was based on measured values. Due to the soil texture of
sandy soils that retained little water, the initial values of NH4-N andNO3-N could be neglected. The initial values of NH4-N and NO3-N thus
only reﬂected the initial application of the basal fertilization. The
horizontal distribution of initial water contents and solute concentrations was assumed to be uniform.
The boundary conditions at the upper boundary included up to
three time-variable ﬂuxes and one atmospheric boundary condition torepresent drip irrigation and to apply precipitation, evaporation, andtranspiration ﬂuxes. Three diﬀerent sets of boundary conditions were
speciﬁed for three mulching scenarios with a biodegradable ﬁlm, aplastic ﬁlm, and no ﬁlm (Chen et al., 2019). In the scenarios with abiodegradable ﬁlm (i.e., BFM280, BFM210, and BFM140), the mulchedsoil surface (0−40 cm) was divided into three parts (Fig. 1b) to represent uneven disintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm: the soil surface
up to 10 cm away from the emitter (R1) with the highest disintegration
was assigned a "Variable Flux 1″ boundary condition; the 10−25 cm
soil surface (R2) was assigned a "Variable Flux 2″ boundary condition,
the 25−40 cm soil surface (R3) with the lowest disintegration was assigned a "Variable Flux 3″ boundary condition, and the 40−50 cm soil
surface with no ﬁlm was assigned an "Atmospheric" boundary condition. In the scenario with a plastic ﬁlm (i.e., PFM280), the mulched soil
surface (0−40 cm) was assigned a “No Flow” boundary condition andthe 40−50 cm soil surface without mulch was assigned an “Atmospheric” boundary condition. In the scenario without mulching (i.e.,
NFM280), the entire soil surface (0−50 cm) was assigned an “Atmospheric” boundary condition. The emitter ﬂux speciﬁed along a 0.8 cm
long boundary was calculated using the following equation (Skaggs
et al., 2004):

q=

Q
L × 2πr2.4. Statistical analysis
Signiﬁcant diﬀerences in yield for diﬀerent treatments were analyzed using the SPSS software (SPSS Inc., 20.0., USA). The root meansquare error (RMSE), the determination coeﬃcient (R2), and the NashSutcliﬀe eﬃciency (NSE) were used to evaluate the model performancein simulating soil water contents (SWC) and solute concentrations(NO3-N):(6)

where q is the emitter ﬂux (15.9 cm h−1), Q is the emitter discharge(2.4 L h−1), L is the distance between emitters (30 cm), and r is theradius of the emitter (0.8 cm).
A “Free Drainage” boundary condition, allowing for downward
drainage, was applied along the bottom boundary of the transport domain since the groundwater table was over 300 cm deep during thegrowing season and did not aﬀect ﬂow in the transport domain. Due to
ﬂow symmetry, a “No Flow” boundary condition was speciﬁed along
vertical (left and right) boundaries. The third-type Cauchy boundary
condition was used for solute transport along all boundaries with speciﬁed water ﬂuxes (at the top boundary), while the second-type
Neumann boundary condition was used for solute transport along
outﬂow boundaries (at the bottom boundary).

n

RMSE =R2 =1∑ (Si − Oi)2
n i=1

(7)

n
∑i = 1 (Oi − O¯ )(Si − S¯ )nn∑i = 1 (Oi − O¯ ) ∑i = 1 (Si − S¯ )(8)n
∑ (Si − Oi )2
NSE = 1 − in− 1∑i − 1 (Oi − O¯ )2

(9)
3

−3

where Si is the simulated soil water content (cm cm ) or NO3-N
concentration (mg cm−3), Oi is the corresponding observed soil watercontent (cm3 cm−3) or NO3-N concentration (mg cm−3), n is the

2.3.3. Modeling parameters
Soil hydraulic parameters for the van Genuchten-Mualem model for5Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

Table 2
Statistical results for HYDRUS (2D/3D) calibration (2016) and validation (2017) for soil water contents (SWC) and NO3-N concentrations (NC) of diﬀerent soil layers
under diﬀerent mulching scenarios (PFM, BFM, and NFM) and N-fertilizer applications (subscripts 140, 210, and 280 kg ha−1). RMSE, R2, and NSE are the root meansquare error, the coeﬃcient of determination, and the Nash-Sutcliﬀe eﬃciency, respectively.
Year

2016

Parameter

3

SWC (cm cm

Depth (cm)−3)

NC (mg cm−3)

2017

SWC (cm3 cm−3)

NC (mg cm−3)

0–10
10–20
20–40
40–60
60–100
0–10
10–20
20–40
40–60
60–100
0–10
10–20
20–40
40–60
60–100
0–10
10–20
20–40
40–60
60–100

PFM280

BFM280

RMSE

2

R

NSE

0.03
0.02
0.03
0.01
0.01
0.05
0.04
0.04
0.02
0.01
0.04
0.03
0.03
0.02
0.01
0.05
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.01

0.83
0.85
0.81
0.88
0.91
0.78
0.80
0.79
0.83
0.85
0.76
0.78
0.76
0.82
0.85
0.75
0.73
0.77
0.81
0.82

0.85
0.92
0.94
0.95
0.98
0.82
0.85
0.87
0.91
0.92
0.81
0.85
0.89
0.93
0.94
0.78
0.82
0.86
0.88
0.91

BFM210

RMSE

2

R

NSE

0.03
0.03
0.04
0.02
0.01
0.06
0.06
0.05
0.03
0.01
0.04
0.03
0.04
0.02
0.01
0.06
0.05
0.05
0.03
0.01

0.80
0.82
0.78
0.85
0.88
0.76
0.81
0.73
0.81
0.82
0.73
0.76
0.72
0.81
0.84
0.72
0.75
0.74
0.79
0.80

0.84
0.87
0.82
0.92
0.94
0.80
0.83
0.82
0.88
0.91
0.78
0.84
0.80
0.91
0.93
0.80
0.84
0.81
0.85
0.89

BFM140

RMSE

2

R

NSE

0.03
0.03
0.02
0.02
0.01
0.05
0.03
0.03
0.03
0.02
0.04
0.03
0.03
0.02
0.01
0.06
0.05
0.05
0.03
0.02

0.82
0.87
0.84
0.88
0.89
0.74
0.82
0.80
0.82
0.83
0.71
0.74
0.82
0.84
0.85
0.71
0.73
0.78
0.81
0.80

0.85
0.88
0.91
0.94
0.97
0.80
0.85
0.88
0.91
0.98
0.80
0.82
0.84
0.85
0.87
0.81
0.82
0.85
0.84
0.83

NFM280

RMSE

2

R

NSE

RMSE

R2

NSE

0.03
0.02
0.04
0.02
0.01
0.03
0.03
0.04
0.03
0.01
0.03
0.03
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.06
0.05
0.05
0.04
0.02

0.85
0.84
0.81
0.87
0.88
0.82
0.83
0.78
0.84
0.88
0.72
0.78
0.76
0.81
0.85
0.68
0.75
0.71
0.75
0.78

0.90
0.87
0.85
0.95
0.99
0.84
0.87
0.84
0.95
0.97
0.81
0.83
0.82
0.85
0.87
0.72
0.83
0.81
0.84
0.80

0.05
0.04
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.07
0.06
0.05
0.03
0.02
0.06
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.03
0.08
0.06
0.06
0.05
0.03

0.72
0.78
0.76
0.82
0.85
0.65
0.68
0.72
0.82
0.83
0.71
0.69
0.75
0.78
0.81
0.62
0.68
0.65
0.72
0.75

0.81
0.85
0.82
0.89
0.88
0.72
0.76
0.84
0.87
0.90
0.78
0.83
0.81
0.85
0.86
0.68
0.71
0.70
0.78
0.82

0.110 mg cm−3, respectively. The disintegration of the biodegradable
ﬁlm (which was higher than of the plastic ﬁlm) during the second halfof the growing season (during DAS 79–155 in 2016 and DAS 93–154 in2017) allowed higher soil evaporation in the BFM280 scenario than in
the PFM280 scenario, which subsequently caused NO3-N concentrationsin the upper soil layer (0−40 cm) to be on average 5.4 % higher under
BFM280 than under PFM280, and just the opposite in the deep soil layer(40−100 cm).
There was intensive rainfall in this period in 2016, which decreased
NO3-N concentrations in the upper soil layer and increased them in the
deeper soil layers under BFM280 (Fig. 3). The NO3-N concentration after
intensive rainfall was 26.3 % lower in the upper soil layer under BFM280
than under PFM280, and 14.7 % higher in the deep soil layer. Soilevaporation in the NFM280 scenario was signiﬁcantly higher than in the
PFM280 and BFM280 scenarios, which caused NO3-N concentrations in
the upper soil layer under NFM280 to increase 6.3 % and 11.7 % compared with BFM280 and PFM280, respectively, despite substantial rainfall inﬁltration under NFM280. NO3-N concentrations in the deep soil
layer under NFM280 were, in general, lower than under BFM280 and
PFM280, except after a signiﬁcant rainfall event on DAS 117 in 2016
(Fig. 3).
NO3-N concentrations in diﬀerent soil layers increased as a result ofhigher applications of the N-fertilizer under BFM280 compared to under
BFM210 and BFM140 (Fig. 3). The average NO3-N concentrations in thesoil proﬁle (the 0−100 cm soil layer) under BFM280, BFM210, andBFM140 in 2016 were 0.073, 0.055, and 0.036 mg cm−3, respectively,
and in 2017 they were 0.073, 0.055, and 0.036 mg cm−3, respectively.
Overall, the soil proﬁle NO3-N concentrations were 11.7 %, 12.7 %, and
8.3 % lower on average in 2016 than in 2017 under BFM280, BFM210,
and BFM140, respectively, which was likely caused by intensive rainfall
in 2016, which leached NO3-N into the deeper soil layer (below 100
cm).

number of observed values, and S̄ and Ō are mean values of simulated
and observed soil water contents (cm3 cm−3) or NO3-N concentrations(mg cm−3), respectively. The RMSE is close to zero when only small
diﬀerences between simulated and observed values exist, and R2 is close
to one when a close correlation between simulated and observed values
exist. Finally, NSE, which ranges from -∞ to 1, indicates the consistency
between simulated and observed values.
3. Results
3.1. Eﬃciency of HYDRUS (2D/3D) to simulate the NO3-N movement
The soil hydraulic and solute dispersion parameters were ﬁrst calibrated using the observed SWC and NO3-N concentration data from
diﬀerent treatments and diﬀerent soil depths in 2016 and then validated using corresponding 2017 data. The results showed that HYDRUS(2D/3D) could well capture temporal and spatial trends in SWCs with
RMSE ranging from 0.01 to 0.06 cm3 cm−3, R2 ranging from 0.69 to
0.91, and NSE ranging from 0.78 to 0.99 during the calibration period(Table 2, Fig. 3). The agreement between observed and simulated NO3N concentrations during the validation period was similarly good, with
RMSE, R2, and NSE ranging from 0.01 to 0.08 mg cm−3, 0.62 to 0.87,
and 0.68 to 0.94, respectively (Table 2), indicating that HYDRUS (2D/3D) can be used to simulate the movement of soil water and NO3-N fordiﬀerent ﬁlm mulching and N-fertilizer scenarios.
The NO3-N concentrations increased immediately after the application of the N-fertilizer and then gradually decreased with time. The
four NO3-N concentration peaks due to one application of the basefertilizer at the beginning of the experiment and three topdressings
during the growing season can be seen in Fig. 3. Mulching directly
inﬂuences inﬁltration of rainfall and the loss of soil water from thetopsoil (0−20 cm) due to evaporation, which primarily aﬀects the NO3N distribution in the soil proﬁle. There was almost no diﬀerence in NO3N concentrations in all soil layers between the PFM280 and BFM280
scenarios during DAS 0–78 in 2016 and DAS 0–92 in 2017 due to thelow disintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm. However, the NO3-N
concentration under the ﬁlm mulching treatments (PFM280 and
BFM280) were signiﬁcantly lower than under NFM280, the average NO3N concentrations in 2016 and 2017 for the BFM280, PFM280, andNFM280 scenarios in the 0−100 cm soil layer were 0.078, 0.077, and3.2. Eﬀects of rainfall and N-fertilizer applications on the two-dimensional
distribution of NO3-N
Diﬀerent mulching areas during the late growing season in scenarios
PFM280, BFM280, and NFM280 greatly aﬀected NO3-N distributions inthe soil proﬁle. Since the eﬀects of the N-fertilizer application andrainfall on soil NO3-N distributions were similar in 2016 and 2017, only6

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

Fig. 3. Simulated and observed NO3-N concentrations (NC) at the P1 position in the 0–10
(a, f), 10–20 (b, g), 20–40 (c, h), 40–60 (d, i)and 60−100 cm (e, j) soil depths in 2016 (left)
and 2017 (right) under plastic ﬁlm mulching(PFM280), biodegradable ﬁlm mulching(BFM280), and no ﬁlm mulching (NFM280) with
an application of 280 kg ha−1 of the N-fertilizer, and biodegradable ﬁlm mulching withapplications of 210 kg ha−1 (BFM210) and 140
kg ha−1 (BFM140) of the N-fertilizer.

application of the N-fertilizer.

the results of 2016 are discussed below. Two-dimensional soil NO3-N
distributions under diﬀerent mulching and N-fertilizer scenarios on
DAS 79 (i.e., one day before the N-fertilizer application), DAS 82 (i.e.,
two days after the N-fertilizer application), DAS 116 (i.e., one day before rainfall), and DAS 118 (i.e., one day after rainfall) in 2016 areshown in Fig. 4. Most NO3-N is concentrated in the upper soil layer(0−40 cm), especially in the topsoil (0−20 cm) and alleyways (themiddle section between two rows), when less soil surface is mulched.
For example, NO3-N concentrations in the upper soil layer were 4.9 %higher under BFM280 than under PFM280 on DAS 79, and 34.0 % lower
than under NFM280. Two days after the application of the N-fertilizer(DAS 82), NO3-N concentrations under BFM280, PFM280, and NFM280
increased, with average NO3-N concentrations in the upper soil layer
being 0.241, 0.223, and 0.314 mg cm−3, respectively.
The “available nitrate concentration” (0 < csmax < 0.4 mg cm−3,
which was discussed in 2.3.3 section) under BFM280, PFM280, andNFM280 accounted for 93.6 %, 100 %, and 68.2 %, respectively, of thetotal soil NO3-N in the upper soil layer. There were only slight diﬀerences in the ‘available nitrate concentration’ distributions two days
after N-fertilizer application between BFM280 and PFM280, but signiﬁcant diﬀerences compared to NFM280.
Intensive rainfall greatly aﬀected soil NO3-N distributions (on DAS
118). NO3-N concentrations under BFM280, PFM280, and NFM280 in theupper soil layer one day after rain (DAS 118) decreased by 41.7 %, 29.2%, and 74.9 %, respectively, compared to one day before rain (DAS116) (Fig. 4 p-o), while they increased by 29.8 %, 18.5 %, and 49.3 % in
the deep soil layer (40−100 cm), respectively, because of rainfall inﬁltration. Moreover, there were similar relative NO3-N distributions fordiﬀerent amounts of the N-fertilizer application under BFM. NO3-N
concentrations under BFM210 and BFM140 in the upper soil layer were
24.5 % and 43.9 % lower, respectively than under BFM280 two days
after the N-fertilizer application (DAS 82), while they decreased by 23.1
% and 40.8 %, respectively, one day after rainfall (DAS 118). A positive
linear correlation (y = 0.0003x - 0.0043, R2 = 0.99) can be foundbetween the NO3-N concentration in the 0−100 cm soil layer and the3.3. Cumulative N uptake and leaching
Both simulated and measured N uptake was very low during theearly growing season (DAS 0–78 in 2016 and DAS 0–92 in 2017), thenincreased rapidly in the mid-season, and ﬁnally decreased again after
DAS 116 in 2016 and DAS 125 in 2017 (Fig. 5a and b). In general, an
increase in N uptake corresponded with an increase in the mulched areain the order of PFM280 (largest), BFM280, and NFM280 (smallest).
Meanwhile, there was almost no diﬀerence in cumulative N uptake(CNU) between BFM280 and PFM280 before DAS 78 in 2016 and DAS 92
in 2017, which was signiﬁcantly higher than under NFM280 (Fig. 5a andb). The diﬀerence between BFM280 and PFM280 quickly increased after
DAS 78 in 2016 and DAS 92 in 2017. Average CNU on the last day (DAS
155 and DAS 154, respectively) in 2016 and 2017 under PFM280 was
10.3 % and 41.4 % higher than under BFM280 and NFM280, respectively.
The average daily N uptake intensity in 2016 and 2017 under BFM280,
PFM280, and NFM280 was 1.1, 1.2, and 0.9 kg ha−1 d-1, respectively,
during the early growing season, 1.9, 2.1, and 1.6 kg ha−1 d-1, respectively, during the middle growing season (DAS 79–116 in 2016;
DAS 93–125 in 2017), and 0.3, 0.4, and 0.2 kg ha−1 d−1 during the late
growing season (DAS 117–155 in 2016; DAS 126–154 in 2017). The
order of the N uptake intensity was similar to CNU, i.e.,
PF280 > BF280 > NF280.
There were similar results for NO3-N leaching and N uptake
throughout the growing season. Average CNL in 2016 and 2017 under
BFM280 and PFM280 were 8.3 and 8.6 kg ha−1 higher, respectively thanunder NFM280 (Fig. 5c and 5d) during the early growing season. During
the middle growing season, average CNL in both years under BFM280,
PFM280, and NFM280 were 16.6, 17.1, and 2.7 kg ha-1, respectively,
while average daily CNL was 0.4, 0.4, and 0.1 kg ha−1 d-1, respectively.
Additionally, intensive rainfall (DAS 117 in 2016) under NFM280 resulted in a 43.8 % higher nitrate ﬂux to the groundwater compared with
PFM280. Average daily NO3-N leaching under BFM280, PFM280, and7

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

Fig. 4. Simulated two-dimensional NO3-N distributions on DAS 79 (top; 1 day before the N-fertilizer application), DAS 82 (2 day after the N-fertilizer application),
DAS 116 (1 day before rainfall), and DAS 118 (bottom; 1 day after rainfall) under plastic ﬁlm mulching (middle; PFM280), biodegradable ﬁlm mulching (second left;
BFM280), and no ﬁlm mulching (left; NFM280) with an application of 280 kg ha−1 of the N-fertilizer, and under biodegradable ﬁlm mulching with applications of 210
kg ha−1 (second right; BFM210) and 140 kg ha-1 (right; BFM140) of the N-fertilizer.

NFM280 were 0.7, 0.5, and 2.4 kg ha−1 d-1, respectively, in 2016, but
only 0.04, 0.1, and 0.01 kg ha−1 d-1, respectively, in 2017 during thelate growing season (Fig. 5d). Thus, PFM280 can increase N uptake but
may cause more NO3-N leaching out of the root zone and have detrimental eﬀects on the soil environment. Compared with PFM280 and
NFM280, BFM280 not only increased N uptake, but also decreased NO3-N
leaching, and thus represented an optimal strategy.
There were apparent diﬀerences in both CNU and CNL for diﬀerent
applications of the N-fertilizer (Fig. 5). When the amount of N-fertilizer
decreased by 25 %, and CNU and CNL decreased by 25.8 % and 23.1 %,respectively. Correspondingly, a 50 % decrease in the applied N-fertilizer produced reductions of 51.8 % and 36.2 % in CNU and CNL, respectively.

3.4. Components of the N balance and the N use eﬃciency
The N use eﬃciency (NUE) is a critical index in the agricultural
production that is aﬀected by many factors such as nitriﬁcation, CNU,
CNL, and crop yield. When the same amounts of the N-fertilizer andirrigation were applied, a decrease in the mulching area resulted inenhancing nitriﬁcation, which may be caused by receiving more rainwater. The nitriﬁcation rate increased by 10.0 % and 7.1 % under
NFM280 compared with PFM280 and BFM280 in both years, and the order
was NF280, BF280, and PF280 (Table 3). CNU among all ﬁlm treatments
was lowest under NFM280 due to low root water uptake caused by highsoil evaporation, despite high NO3-N accumulated in the upper soil
layer (0−40 cm). Average CNU in 2016 and 2017 under BFM280,
PFM280, and NFM280 were 175, 192, and 136 kg ha−1, respectively.
Additionally, the higher the mulching area, the higher the NO3-N
8

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

Fig. 5. Cumulative simulated and observed
NO3-N uptake (CNU, top) in 2016 (a) and 2017(b) and cumulative NO3-N leaching (CNL,
bottom) at depths of 100 cm in 2016 (c) and2017 (d) under plastic ﬁlm mulching (PFM280),
biodegradable ﬁlm mulching (BFM280), and noﬁlm mulching (NFM280) with an application of
280 kg ha−1 of the N-fertilizer, and biodegradable ﬁlm mulching with applications of
210 kg ha−1 (BFM210) and 140 kg ha-1
(BFM140) of the N-fertilizer.

leaching, which was 22.3, 25.5, and 1.4 kg ha-1 under BFM280, PFM280,
and NFM280, respectively, in 2017 (Table 3).
A diﬀerent pattern occurred in 2016 due to intensive rainfall during
the late growing stage, with NO3-N leaching 6.5 % and 77.8 % higher
under BFM280 and NFM280, respectively than under PFM280. The opposite results were obtained for residual soil NO3-N compared to CNL.
Residual N under BFM280 and NFM280 increased by 14.3 and 8.1 kg
ha−1, respectively, compared to PFM280 in 2016, and by 15.5 and 91.5
kg ha−1, respectively, in 2017. Moreover, the crop yield increased on
average in two growing seasons by 50.8 % and 67.9 % under BFM280
and PFM280 compared with NFM280. The average NUE in two growing
seasons under BFM280 and PFM280 increased by 14.4 % and 15.6 %compared to NFM280. Thus, while there were no signiﬁcant diﬀerencesin corn yields, NO3-N leaching, and NUE under the BFM280 and PFM280
scenarios, all these values were much better than under NFM280.
N uptake, NO3-N leaching, and residual NO3-N decreased with adecrease in the N-fertilizer application (Table 3). Average CNU in 2016
and 2017 under BFM210 and BFM140 compared with BFM280 decreased
by 25.8 % and 51.8 %, respectively, CNL decreased by 23.1 % and 36.2%, and residual NO3-N declined by 25.2 % and 56.2 %, respectively.
The highest NUE (the average value of 50.9 kg kg−1 for two years) was
found under BFM210, which represented an increase of 1.2 % and 12.5
% compared with BFM280 and BFM140, respectively. The crop yieldshould increase when the N-fertilizer amount is enhanced in a suitable
range: an average increase in corn yield was 73.2 % when the N-fertilizer application was increased from 140 to 210 kg ha-1, and 33.3 %when from 210 to 280 kg ha-1.
4. Discussion
4.1. Eﬃciency of HYDRUS (2D/3D)
Since the establishment of a reasonable irrigation or fertilization
strategy requires precise knowledge of soil water and N dynamics,
many ﬁeld experiments would have to be conducted to obtain suchinformation, which would be highly time-consuming and costly.
Therefore, HYDRUS (2D/3D) has been widely used in the literature tosimulate diﬀerent irrigation and fertilization strategies to ﬁnd such

Table 3
Simulated components of the N balance, observed corn yields, and the N use eﬃciency (NUE) under plastic ﬁlm mulching (PFM280), biodegradable ﬁlm mulching(BFM280), and no ﬁlm mulching (NFM280) with an application of 280 kg ha−1 of the N-fertilizer, and biodegradable ﬁlm mulching with applications of 210 kg ha-1
(BFM210) and 140 kg ha-1 (BFM140) of the N-fertilizer. NUE: yield (kg ha-1) divided by N uptake by crop (kg ha-1). Diﬀerent letters in the same column indicate asigniﬁcant diﬀerence (P < 0.05) among treatments.
N balance components (kg ha−1)

Year

2016

2017

PFM280
BFM280
BFM210
BFM140
NFM280
PFM280
BFM280
BFM210
BFM140
NFM280

Nitriﬁcation

InitialAppliedCrop uptake

Leaching

Residual

37.6
38.9
29.2
19.5
40.5
33.7
34.3
24.2
16.1
37.9

44.8
44.8
33.6
22.4
44.8
44.8
44.8
33.6
22.4
44.8

179.2
179.2
134.4
89.6
179.2
179.2
179.2
134.4
89.6
179.2

202.1
185.7
137.7
88.9
155.9
182.2
164.1
121.8
79.6
115.8

52.7
56.1
42.8
37.3
93.7
25.5
22.3
17.5
12.7
1.4

6.8
21.1
16.7
5.3
14.9
53.2
68.7
50.5
34
144.7

9

Yield (kg ha−1)

NUE (kg kg−1)

10759.6 a
9821.5 a
7376.4 b
4228.2 c7584.3 b
8814.7 b
7826.5 b
5867.1 bc
3413.8 d4545.4 c

53.2
52.9
53.6
47.6
48.6
48.4
47.7
48.2
42.9
39.3

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

NFM280 (Fig. 3, Table 3). The maximum diﬀerence between BFM280 and
PFM280 occurred on the last day of the experiment with the 55.1 %disintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm, and the average NO3-N concentrations in both years under BFM280 and PFM280 was 0.077 and0.075 mg cm−3, respectively (Fig. 3).
Furthermore, the NO3-N concentrations in the upper soil layer(0−40 cm soil layer) under BFM280 decreased by 12.5 % compared tothat under PFM280 on DAS 118 (one day after rainfall) during the late
growing season. The cause of this phenomenon was that the movementof soil water and NO3-N was signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced by intensive
rainfall that carried NO3-N toward the deep soil layer. Similar ﬁndings
were reported by Haraguchi et al. (2004), who found that large NO3-N
discharge occurred in the ridge-mulch treatment during three days after
heavy rainfall, in which cumulative precipitation exceeded 10 mm.
They also reported that daily NO3-N leaching in the ridge-mulch
treatment was twice as large as in the full-mulch treatment.

optimal schemes, and it has been shown that this model can well capture temporal and spatial water and/or N dynamics (Ramos et al., 2012;
Saglam et al., 2017; Karandish and Šimůnek, 2017; Everton et al.,2019). For example, Zhang et al. (2015) used HYDRUS (2D/3D) toevaluate diﬀerent drip irrigation and fertigation strategies carried out
in ﬁeld experiments, and they reported the RMSE (between the modeland data) ranging from 11.5 to 20.25 mg kg−1 for nitrate concentrations. Karandish and Šimůnek (2017) used the model to simulate drip
irrigation for 11 irrigation levels and 8 nitrogen fertilization rates andindicated that the simulated NO3-N concentrations agreed well withobserved values with the RMSE ranging from 1.07 to 7.73 mg L−1, andMBE ranging from -3.81-5.13 mg L−1. Additionally, the subsurface
transport of nitrate under three diﬀerent initial nitrate concentrations
was evaluated using HYDRUS (2D/3D) by Xie et al. (2019). Their research demonstrated excellent model performance with NSE of 0.744
and RMSE of 35.6 mg L−1 during the validation period.
However, the above-mentioned studies mainly focused on NO3-N
concentrations simulated under drip irrigation with no ﬁlm mulching or
under surface irrigation. This study represents the ﬁrst study that both
calibrated and validated HYDRUS (2D/3D) for diﬀerent N-fertilizer
application levels under biodegradable ﬁlm mulching, obtaining theaccuracy for the validation period that meets standard requirementswith the RMSE, R2, and NSE of 0.01-0.08 mg cm−3, 0.62-0.87, and0.68-0.94, respectively. HYDRUS (2D/3D) can thus be used to successfully simulate the NO3-N movement in a drip-irrigated ﬁeld withbiodegradable ﬁlm mulching.

4.3. Analysis of N balance components
4.3.1. N balance components in the soil proﬁle under ﬁlm mulching
An increase of air and oxygen contents in response to a decrease in
SWCs (e.g., Šimůnek and Suarez, 1993; Suarez and Šimůnek, 1993)
results in intensive nitriﬁcation (Lei, 1988). Average nitriﬁcation in2016 and 2017 under PFM280 was 2.9 % lower than under BFM280(Table 3) due to the disintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm during thelate growing season. The reason is that the disintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm decreased SWCs in the topsoil and increased nitriﬁcation. Similarly, Fernando et al. (2002) showed that nitriﬁcation under
BFM was 12 % higher than under PFM.
N uptake is, in general, both an active and passive process(Marschner, 2013). However, since the passive component is often adominant process, only this component of N uptake is often consideredin the HYDRUS modeling (Filipovic et al., 2016; Karandish andŠimůnek, 2017; Saglam et al., 2017). There are signiﬁcant diﬀerencesin root water uptake for the BFM, PFM, and NFM scenarios, which also
determines root solute uptake. Since passive N uptake is mainly inﬂuenced by root water uptake and soil NO3-N concentrations, N uptake
increases with an increase in NO3-N concentrations under the same
irrigation scenario. Therefore, CNU for an incomplete ﬁlm mulch
treatment was lower than for a complete ﬁlm mulching treatment, with
CNU under NFM lowest from all ﬁlm treatments (Fig. 5, Table 3).
In our study, the crop yield under BFM280 was slightly lower compared to that under PFM280 because of the lower CNU (Table 3). The
crop yield in general increases with an increase in transpiration and N
uptake, independently of the presence or absence of ﬁlm mulching(Ramos et al., 2012; Filipovic et al., 2016). Wang et al. (2019a,b) reported similar results, showing that PFM performed best in enhancing
the cotton yield, while BFM increased cotton yield by 21.3 % and 12.1
% compared with NFM in wetter and drier years, respectively. However, there were also opposite conclusions that the crop yield under
NFM is higher than under PFM (Filipovic et al., 2016), likely due tohigher SWCs under NFM in the experimental area with a humid climate.
When the mulching area increased, NO3-N leaching from the soil
proﬁle also increased. For example, CNL in 2016 for PFM280, BFM280,
and NFM280 was 52.7, 56.1, and 93.7 kg ha−1, respectively. Romicet al. (2003) similarly indicated that NO3-N leaching at the end of theharvest under PFM, BFM, and NFM was 10, 18, and 26 kg ha−1, respectively.

4.2. Soil NO3-N movement and distribution in the ﬁlm mulching ﬁeld
During the late growing season, soil evaporation, SWCs, and NO3-N
concentrations in the topsoil under biodegradable ﬁlm mulching (BFM)
were signiﬁcantly diﬀerent from those under plastic ﬁlm mulching(PFM). The diﬀerence between these values under BFM and PFM increased in response to an increase in the disintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm. It can be seen that the movement and distribution of
NO3-N in the soil proﬁle is mainly inﬂuenced by the soil water movement that is greatly aﬀected by soil evaporation (Hillel, 1981; Lei,
1988; Li et al., 2015a,b). For example, high soil evaporation decreases
soil water contents (SWC) and increases NO3-N concentrations in theupper soil layer (Karandish and Šimůnek, 2017). Additionally, the capillary water movement may also enhance and directly accumulate
NO3-N in the topsoil. Film mulching may cut oﬀ the heat exchange
between the atmosphere and the soil surface, reduce surface net radiation, decrease soil evaporation, increase SWCs, and decrease NO3-N
concentrations in the topsoil compared with no ﬁlm mulching (NFM)(Monday et al., 2015; Ospanbayev et al., 2017; He et al., 2018).
There were no apparent diﬀerences during the early crop growthstage in NO3-N distributions between BFM and PFM. Similarly, while
SWCs under BFM and PFM were similar during the early crop growthstage (Saglam et al., 2017; Gu et al., 2017), SWCs under BFM weremarkedly lower than under PFM during DAS 150–240 due to the disintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm (Gu et al., 2017). Wang et al.
(2019a,b) also reported that soil evaporation and soil water losses wereenhanced by BFM compared with PFM at the late growth stages (DAS
120–180). Additionally, NO3-N concentrations in the 0−20 cm soil
layer under BFM were 25.7 % lower than under PFM based on theanalysis of soil physicochemical properties and measured enzyme activities (Huang et al., 2019). However, diﬀerent results were obtainedin our experiment compared to those of Huang et al. (2019) due todiﬀerences in annual precipitations (103 mm in our experimental region and 430 mm in Huang et al., 2019). It can be expected that higher
rainfall would cause higher NO3-N losses from the upper soil layer. In
this study, i.e., in the experimental region with low precipitation, theNO3-N concentrations in the topsoil layer under BFM280 was 6.8 % and
3.9 % higher than under PFM280 during DAS 79–155 in 2016 and DAS
93–154 in 2017, respectively, but they were much lower than under

4.3.2. N balance components in the soil proﬁle for diﬀerent N-fertilizer
application levels
Nitrate is a signiﬁcant N source taken up from the soil by crops.
Some studies have shown that applying reasonable amounts of the Nfertilizer was essential to protect agricultural ecological environments(Filipovic et al., 2016; Karandish and Šimůnek, 2017; Azad et al.,2018). In general, higher N-fertilizer applications can increase crop N
10

Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 292 (2020) 106817

N. Chen, et al.

inﬂuence the work reported in this paper.

uptake and yield (Li et al., 2004; Gheysari et al., 2009; Chen et al.,2018). For example, in this study, N uptake under BFM280 (a higher Nfertilizer application) increased by 25.8 and 51.8 % compared with
BFM210 (a medium N-fertilizer application) and BFM140 (a low N-fertilizer application), respectively. However, higher N-fertilizer applications can easily cause more NO3-N leaching and higher residual N
concentrations, which may lead to serious pollution of groundwater
environments, especially in regions with a shallow groundwater table(Marianne et al., 2013). Moreover, residual N concentrations generally
increased with an increase in the N-fertilizer application. For example,
Kim et al. (2014) reported an increase in the NO3-N concentration of
0.0002 mg cm−3 with a unit increase in the N-fertilizer application
under plastic ﬁlm mulching. In our study, the NO3-N concentrations
increased by 0.0003 mg cm−3 under biodegradable ﬁlm mulching,because evaporation under biodegradable ﬁlm mulching was higher
than under plastic ﬁlm mulching. When the NO3-N concentration in thesoil proﬁle is higher than a certain threshold, crop growth can be restricted, and the N use eﬃciency (NUE) can decrease (Hossain et al.,2018; Chen et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2019a,b). In this study, the NUE
under BFM280 decreased by 1.2 % compared to BFM210. Similar results
were found by Yu and Ehrenfeld (2009), who noted that excessive N
applications accelerated soil moisture depletion due to excessive vegetative growth and higher evapotranspiration demand, making thecrop prone to the drought stress. On the other hand, lower applicationsof the N-fertilizer can produce a decrease in NO3-N leaching and residual NO3-N, but may not meet crop growth requirements, and cause
low economic eﬃciency (Kumar et al., 2019).
Therefore, only a reasonable N-fertilizer amount can improve the
NUE. In this study, the highest NUE of 50.9 kg kg−1 (an average for two
years) was found under BFM210, which represented an increase of 1.2 %and 12.5 % compared with BFM280 and BFM140, respectively. An application of 210 kg ha−1 of the N-fertilizer was the best strategy forcorn in a sandy region, which was similar to the research of Karandishand Šimůnek (2017) in the semi-arid region.

Acknowledgments
This research was jointly supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (51539005, 51669020, and 51469022), and the
Natural Sciences Foundation of Inner Mongolia (2016JQ06).
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5. Conclusions
The N dynamic under BFM280, PFM280, and NFM280 was evaluatedboth experimentally and using numerical modeling with HYDRUS (2D/
3D). The model was successfully calibrated and validated using observed NO3-N concentrations from 2016 and 2017, respectively, obtaining the accuracy for the validation period that meets standard requirements with the RMSE, R2, and NSE of 0.01-0.08 mg cm−3, 0.620.87, and 0.68-0.94, respectively. There were only negligible diﬀerences in NO3-N concentrations in the soil proﬁle, CNU, and CNL at a
depth of 100 cm between BFM280 and PFM280 during the early growing
season (DAS 0–78 in 2016, DAS 0–92 in 2017), but there were quite
substantial diﬀerences compared with NFM280. The NO3-N concentrations in the upper soil layer (0−40 cm) under BFM280 were higher thanunder PFM280 due to the disintegration of the biodegradable ﬁlm. N
uptake and NO3-N leaching decreased with a decrease in the mulchingarea from PFM280 to BFM280, and NFM280. Additionally, NO3-N
leaching was greatly aﬀected by intensive rainfall when no or little ﬁlm
mulching was present at the soil surface. Film mulching thus produced
a signiﬁcant advantage compared to no ﬁlm mulching, While NO3-N
concentrations, N uptake, and NO3-N leaching all increased under BFM
with an increase in the N-fertilizer application, the highest NUE wasfound for BFM210. Therefore, a biodegradable ﬁlm can represent a goodalternative to a plastic ﬁlm in arid regions to avoid plastic pollution.
The application of 210 kg ha-1 of the N-fertilizer with BFM was an
optimal scenario in a sandy farmland.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing ﬁnancial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to11

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