Estimation of Effective Hydrologic Properties of Soils from Observations of Vegetation Density
Name
06672999.pdf
Size
3.76 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
2cd63659463c3eace28f6b0e5c55a00a
Author(s)
Tellers, Tobin E.
Eagleson, Peter S.
Date Issued
March 1980
Publisher
Cambridge, Mass. : Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Water Resources and Hydrodynamics
Series/Report no.
R (Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil Engineering) ; 80-7.
Report (Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory for Water Resources and Hydrodynamics) ; 254.
Abstract
An existing one-dimensional model of the annual water balance is reviewed. Slight improvements are made in the method of calculating the bare soil component of evaporation, and in the way surface retention is handled. A natural selection hypothesis, which specifies the equilibrium vegetation density for a given, water-limited, climate-soil system, is verified through comparisons with observed data and is employed in the annual water balance of watersheds in Clinton, Ma., and Santa Paula, Ca., to estimate effective areal average soil properties. Comparison of CDF's of annual basin yield derived using these soil properties with observed CDF's provides excellent verification of the soil-selection procedure. This method of parameterization of the land surface should be useful with present global circulation models, enabling them to account for both the non-linearity in the relationship between soil moisture flux and soil moisture concentration, and the variability of soil properties from place to place over the earth's surface.
Description
Prepared with the support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Grant NSG 5306
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