Scale issues in soil moisture modelling: problems and prospects

Soil moisture storage is an important component of the hydrological cycle and plays a key role in land-surface-atmosphere interaction. The soil-moisture storage equation in this study considers precipitation as an input and soil moisture as a residual term for runoff and evapotranspiration. A number of models have been developed to estimate soil moisture storage and the components of the soil-moisture storage equation. A detailed discussion of the impli cation of the scale of application of these models reports that it is not possible to extrapolate processes and their estimates from the small to the large scale. It is also noted that physically based models for small-scale applications are sufficiently detailed to reproduce land-surface- atmosphere interactions. On the other hand, models for large-scale applications oversimplify the processes. Recently developed physically based models for large-scale applications can only be applied to limited uses because of data restrictions and the problems associated with land surface characterization. It is reported that remote sensing can play an important role in over coming the problems related to the unavailability of data and the land surface characterization of large-scale applications of these physically based models when estimating soil moisture storage.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Ajuste do método de Priestley-Taylor às condições climáticas locais Adjustment of the Priestley-Taylor method to local climatic conditions

A sustentabilidade da agricultura irrigada depende primariamente do manejo eficiente da irrigação, de modo a aumentar a produtividade primária de uma cultura em determinada localidade. A eficiência no uso de água pode ser melhorada pelo próprio esquema de irrigação adotado, sendo essencialmente governado pelas condições climáticas. O planejamento da irrigação e a tomada de decisão são funções do conhecimento da demanda evaporativa da atmosfera, sendo expressa pela demanda potencial (ETo). Em geral, quase todos os métodos de estimativa de ETo reportados na literatura referem-se a valores diários, incluindo-se nessa situação as perdas noturnas de evaporação, as quais serão expressivas apenas em alguns dias após a chuva ou irrigação. Desenvolveu-se, no presente estudo, método corrigido para estimar ETo, baseado no balanço de energia local, a partir de dados meteorológicos monitorados em postos de observação de superfície durante o período de luz. Para validação do método de Priestley-Taylor ajustado às condições locais, foram utilizados dados observados em estação meteorológica automática instalada em Piracicaba - SP, bem como medidas lisimétricas coletadas na Fazenda Areião da área experimental da ESALQ/USP. Estudos de regressão revelaram que o método proposto apresentou excelentes resultados quando comparado com o método de Penman-Monteith e com medidas realizadas em lisímetros de pesagem com célula de carga, dados os elevados valores de coeficiente de determinação obtidos, podendo ser recomendado, portanto, em estudos de avaliação de consumo de água das culturas em diversas localidades.<br>The sustainability of irrigated agriculture depends primarily on the efficient management of irrigation in order to increase the crop primary productivity in a given site. The efficiency in water use can be enhanced by the irrigation schedule adopted, being mainly governed by the climatic conditions. The irrigation planning and the decision making is a function of the knowledge of atmospheric demand, which might be expressed by the reference evapotranspiration (ETo). In general, almost all the ETo estimation methods reported by the literature refers to daily values, including in such situation the night evaporation losses, which must be taken into account only during some days after rain or irrigation. In the current study a corrected method for estimating ETo, based on the local energy balance, was proposed from meteorological data monitored in an automated weather station throughout light periods. To validate the current methodology a set of climatic data observed in Piracicaba, SP, Brazil, as well as lysimetric measurements collected at the "Areião" Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of São Paulo - ESALQ/USP - were used for such a purpose. Regression analyses have revealed that the proposed method showed excellent results when compared with Penman-Monteith method and also with measurements made by weighting lysimeters, given the high coefficient of determination values obtained, being able to be recommended, however, in studies for assessment of crop water use at several sites