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SCHRIFTENREIHE Institut für Pflanzenernährung und Bodenkunde ...

SCHRIFTENREIHE Institut für Pflanzenernährung und Bodenkunde ...

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Abbreviations: ET, evapotranspiration; Tp, transpiration; E, evaporation; Ks,<br />

saturated hydraulic conductivity; RMSE, root mean square error; AWHC,<br />

available water holding capacity.<br />

Movement of soil water and heat plays a key role in the whole water and energy<br />

balance in many agricultural issues, especially in arid or semi-arid regions. Since<br />

the 1970s, many numerical solutions for the water and heat flow equations were<br />

increasingly used (Feddes et al., 1988; de Jong and Bootsma, 1996; Saito et al.,<br />

2006). A vast variety of soil water models exist ranging from simple water<br />

balance calculations to complex mechanistic models based on Richards’<br />

equation. Richards’ equation, which usually describes unsaturated water flow,<br />

requires the two basic hydraulic functions: water retention curve θ(h) and<br />

hydraulic conductivity K(h) (Butters and Duchateau, 2002). This approach is only<br />

valid for rigid and non-interacting pore walls if laminar flow is assumed, thus<br />

detailed and in situ measurements are normally necessary for accurate<br />

simulation considering the spatial variability of soil properties.<br />

86<br />

Land management is important to heat and water transfer by altering plant<br />

or residue architecture and soil functions (Flerchinger et al., 2003). It is essential<br />

to quantify and predict management effects on soil properties in order to assess<br />

their consequences on plant production and the environment. Many studies<br />

have addressed the effects of land management (tillage, wheel-traffic<br />

compaction, grazing, and crop residue management) on soil properties (Green<br />

et al., 2003). However, few studies have dealt with the consequences of these<br />

practices on water and heat fluxes (Chung and Horton, 1987; Ndiaye et al.,<br />

2007). Especially, considering the stress-dependent changes of the environment,<br />

an adequate account of water flow processes based on hydrological models is<br />

lacking due to the complexity of the soil system (Peth and Horn, 2006; Ndiaye et<br />

al., 2007), although there are widely applicable hydrological models like SHAW<br />

(Flerchinger and Saxton, 1989), HYDRUS (Šimůnek et al., 1998) and SWAT<br />

(Neitsch et al., 2002).<br />

In the steppe of Inner Mongolia, grazing is a widely used land management

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