融雪水土壤入渗量是干旱区沙漠重要的水平衡收入项.2012—2013、2013—2014年两个冬季对古尔班通古特沙漠南缘沙丘西坡、东坡和丘间地降雪前和融雪后的土壤含水率进行监测,根据水量平衡原理计算了沙丘西坡、东坡、丘间地和景观尺度上的融雪水土壤入渗量,并与采用筒测法的实测结果进行比较.结果表明:降雪前土壤含水率较低,未冻层非饱和土壤水对地表冻结层土壤水分的补给可忽略不计;融雪入渗水是表层土壤获得补给的主要水源;冻结期潜水既没有蒸发,积雪融化后潜水也没有获得补给;研究区西坡、东坡、丘间地和景观尺度上的融雪水土壤入渗量分别为20~43、27~43、32~45和26~45 mm.
Soil moisture is critical for vegetation growth in deserts.However,detailed data regarding the soil moisture distribution in space and time in the Gurbantunggut Desert of China have not yet been reported.In this study,we conducted a series of in situ observation experiments in a fixed sand dune at the southern edge of the Gurbantunggut Desert from February 2014 to October 2016,to explore the spatio-temporal variation of soil moisture content,investigate the impact of Haloxylon ammodendron(C.A.Mey.)Bungeon soil moisture content in its root zone,and examine the factors influencing the soil moisture spatial pattern.One-way analysis of variance,least significant difference tests and correlation analysis were used to analyze the data.The results revealed that the soil moisture content exhibited annual periodicity and the temporal variation of soil moisture content throughout a year could be divided into three periods,namely,a moisturegaining period,a moisture-losing period and a moisture-stable period.According to the temporal and spatial variability,the 0–400 cm soil profile could be divided into two layers:an active layer with moderate variability and a stable layer with weak variability.The temporal variability was larger than the spatial variability in the active layer,and the mean profile soil moisture content at different slope positions displayed the trend of decreasing with increasing relative height and mainly followed the order of interdune area>west and east slopes>slope top.The mean profile soil moisture content in the root zone of dead H.ammodendron individuals was significantly higher than that in the root zones of adult and young individuals,while the soil moisture content in the root zone of adult individuals was slightly higher than that in the root zone of young individuals with no significant difference.The spatial pattern of soil moisture was attributable to the combined effects of snowfall,vegetation and soil texture,whereas the effects of rainfall and evaporation were not significant.The findin
A knowledge of soil permeability is essential to evaluate hydrologic characteristics of soil, such as water storage and water movement, and soil permeability coefficient is an important parameter that reflects soil permeability. In order to confirm the acceptability of the one-dimensional horizontal infiltration method(one-D method) for simultaneously determining both the saturated and unsaturated permeability coefficients of loamy sand, we first measured the cumulative infiltration and the wetting front distance under various infiltration heads through a series of one-dimensional horizontal infiltration experiments, and then analyzed the relationships of the cumulative horizontal infiltration with the wetting front distance and the square root of infiltration time. We finally compared the permeability results from Gardner model based on the one-D method with the results from other two commonly-used methods(i.e., constant head method and van Genuchten model) to evaluate the acceptability and applicability of the one-D method. The results showed that there was a robust linear relationship between the cumulative horizontal infiltration and the wetting front distance, suggesting that it is more appropriate to take the soil moisture content after infiltration in the entire wetted zone as the average soil moisture content than as the saturated soil moisture content. The results also showed that there was a robust linear relationship between the cumulative horizontal infiltration and the square root of infiltration time, suggesting that the Philip infiltration formula can better reflect the characteristics of cumulative horizontal infiltration under different infiltration heads. The following two facts indicate that it is feasible to use the one-D method for simultaneously determining the saturated and unsaturated permeability coefficients of loamy sand. First, the saturated permeability coefficient(prescribed in the Gardner model) of loamy sand obtained from the one-D method well agreed with the value obta