Simulation of the Hydrological, Thermal and Energy Budgets

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Water and Climate Change".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 August 2022) | Viewed by 2975

Special Issue Editors

Department of General Physics “Amedeo Avogadro”, Faculty of Sciences, University of Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, Italy
Interests: meteorology; climate physics; numerical modelling; meteorological models; land surface models; crop modelling; hydrometeorology; agrometeorology; agroclimatology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Turin, via P. Giuria 1, 10125 Torino, Italy
Interests: meteorology; land surface models; crop modelling; hydrometeorology; agrometeorology; agroclimatology
Center for Climate/Environment Change Prediction Research (CCCPR), Ewha Womans University, 52 Ewhayeodae-gil, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03760, Korea
Interests: meteorology; climate physics; numerical modelling; meteorological models; land surface models; hydrometeorology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recently, the scientific community has recognized the importance of land surface as a key component of the climate system. The soil represents a source term for hydrologic and energy budgets, as it partitions incoming net radiation into sensible and latent heat flux, and conductive heat flux, and redistributes the precipitation into evapotranspiration, surface or underground storage, runoff, and gravitational drainage. Latent heat flux, being proportional to evapotranspiration, links energy and hydrologic budgets. With these premises, the assessment of the energy and hydrologic budgets is crucial. However, only a few cases of extensive field campaigns using in situ measurements have been carried out to measure soil temperature and moisture, or turbulent fluxes. Satellite measurements may allow for extensive measurements of soil temperature and moisture in the skin layer, but not in the root zone, thus making it very difficult to evaluate the budgets. An alternative method uses numerical model outputs or reanalysis as a surrogate of surface observations to estimate such variables and evaluate the exchanges of energy and moisture between the atmosphere, the vegetation and the soil. Since this is the actual tendency of the research, the papers of this Special Issue dealing with the above-mentioned aspects would certainly represent a novelty in the literature.

Prof. Dr. Claudio Cassardo
Dr. Valentina Andreoli 
Dr. Sujeong Lim
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • sensible heat flux
  • latent heat flux
  • land surface models
  • evapotranspiration
  • surface runoff
  • soil temperature
  • soil moisture
  • model simulations
  • satellite data

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

26 pages, 4681 KiB  
Article
Spatial Estimation of Soil Loss and Planning of Suitable Soil and Water Conservation Interventions for Environmental Sustainability in Northern Karnataka in India Using Geospatial Techniques
by Raghavan Rejani, Kondru Venkateswara Rao, Maheshwar Shivashankar Shirahatti, Kotha Sammi Reddy, Gajjala Ravindra Chary, Kodigal A. Gopinath, Mohammed Osman, Mathyam Prabhakar and Vinod Kumar Singh
Water 2022, 14(22), 3623; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14223623 - 10 Nov 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2507
Abstract
The selected study area lies in Karnataka State of Southern India and is frequently subjected to prolonged dry spells, high soil erosion, declining groundwater levels, and reductions in crop yield. In order to make this region sustainable, estimation of soil loss, selection and [...] Read more.
The selected study area lies in Karnataka State of Southern India and is frequently subjected to prolonged dry spells, high soil erosion, declining groundwater levels, and reductions in crop yield. In order to make this region sustainable, estimation of soil loss, selection and prioritization of suitable interventions, and its adoption are very important. In this study, spatial soil loss estimation models were developed sub-district-wise using the Revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) and GIS for a period of 70 years (1951 to 2020). The observed soil loss data for the period of 2011 to 2015 were used for validation of the model (R2 = 0.89) and were found satisfactory. The average annual rainfall ranged spatially from 420 to 3700 mm, erosivity (R) ranged from 2606 to >15,000 MJ mm ha−1 h−1 year−1, and average annual soil loss varied from <2.0 to >15.0 t ha−1 y−1 in the northern dry zone of Karnataka. Most of the study area had an average annual rainfall of 550 to 800 mm and the soil loss was <10.0 t ha−1 y−1. A higher erosivity and soil loss occurred in the western part of the selected area where high rainfall is predominant. A considerable variability in rainfall, erosivity, and soil loss was found in high, medium, and low-rainfall regions from 1951 to 2020. The spatial soil loss was estimated catchment-wise and prioritized to determine the vulnerable areas. It was found that 7.69% of the area with soil loss ≥ 15.0 t ha−1 y−1 needs top priority for planning interventions (Priority 1) followed by 10.49% of the area with soil loss ranging from 10.0 to 15.0 t ha−1 y−1 (Priority 2) and 42.7% of the area under 5.0 to 10.0 t ha−1 y−1 (Priority 3), and the remaining area has lower priority. In order to make Northern Karnataka more sustainable, suitable site-specific moisture conservation practices and water-harvesting/groundwater recharge structures were planned using geospatial techniques. Among the selected moisture conservation interventions, conservation furrow and contour cultivation are very suitable for all the nine districts followed by compartmental bunding and semi-circular bunds. Out of the total area, conservation furrow was found suitable for 45.3% of the area, contour cultivation for 24.3% of the area, and compartmental bunding and semi-circular bunds for 16.8 and 16.9% of the areas, respectively. The study indicated that a considerable amount of topsoil is lost as erosion and, hence, planning and adoption of suitable in situ soil and water conservation practices and water-harvesting/groundwater recharge structures are the need of the hour for the sustainable management of this region. The identified locations were validated using visual interpretations, ground truth, and recorded data. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Simulation of the Hydrological, Thermal and Energy Budgets)
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