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SCHRIFTENREIHE Institut für Pflanzenernährung und Bodenkunde ...

SCHRIFTENREIHE Institut für Pflanzenernährung und Bodenkunde ...

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Chapter 7 General discussion and conclusions<br />

results therefore suggest that the detailed laboratory measurements of soil<br />

hydraulic properties from <strong>und</strong>isturbed soil sampling are necessary to reflect the<br />

effect of land managements on water flux.<br />

Under the prevailing semi-arid climatic conditions in Inner Mongolia, plant<br />

available water plays the most key role for the sustainable development of<br />

steppe ecosystems. At this moment, some studies have shown that grazing<br />

affects water budget (Bremer et al., 2001). However, to which extent grazing<br />

affects evapotranspiration, and how far it is partitioned into transpiration and<br />

evaporation is unclear. We proofed that the water budget in Inner Mongolia<br />

grassland is significantly influenced by grazing. Although there was no apparent<br />

difference in evapotranspiration (ET) among different grazing intensities, the<br />

components of ET, i.e. interception, transpiration and evaporation significantly<br />

varied with grazing intensity. It is obvious that, compared with the grazed sites,<br />

interception and transpiration increased and soil evaporation decreased in the<br />

ungrazed sites. In contrast to this, evaporation in the grazed sites simultaneously<br />

increased. We deem it important information for judgments of water use<br />

efficiency in this region.<br />

Currently, although snowmelt or lateral soil water movement on frozen soil<br />

layers is recognized as an important part for the seasonal water balance,<br />

simulations of snow hydrology and soil freezing and thawing are rarely done due<br />

to a lack of suitable models that describe the complex processes during phase<br />

changes and limited data availability to parameterize or validate such models<br />

(Hansson et al., 2004). Especially, the mutual interactions of water and heat<br />

flows in frozen soil are limited to laboratory observation and theoretical analysis,<br />

but rarely conducted in field applications. Based on this, an extended freezing<br />

code was incorporated into HYDRUS-1D to numerically solve coupled equations<br />

governing phase changes between water and ice and heat transport (Hansson<br />

et al., 2004). The freezing model was proofed to predict well the soil water and<br />

heat fluxes <strong>und</strong>er both unfrozen and frozen conditions. This provided a basis for<br />

the studies of soil freezing and thawing behavior. It has been fo<strong>und</strong> that soil<br />

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