Search results for " Soil water"
showing 10 items of 37 documents
Testing soil water repellency in a Sicilian area two years after a fire
2019
The water drop penetration time (WDPT) technique was applied in 2018 to check persistence of soil water repellency (SWR) in a Sicilian mountain area affected by a wildfire on June 2016. A total of four sites, that were severely water repellent immediately after burning, were sampled. Depending on the site, wettable soil conditions, less SWR and maintenance of a noticeable SWR were detected two years later. At the site showing a near-constant SWR, WDPTs were particularly high in the top soil layer (0-0.03 m) and they appreciably decreased more in depth. Signs of decreasing SWR in drier soil conditions and in association with coarser soil particles were also detected at this site. High gradie…
Cover crop management and water conservation in vineyard and olive orchards
2021
Abstract Sustainability in orchard crops is an important goal for farmers, decision-makers and consumers. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals emphasize the importance of the soils in the Earth System to achieve sustainability and accomplish the Land Degradation Neutrality Challenge. Within the world agriculture land, olive and vineyards are within the eldest crops in the world, and they are also the ones with the highest degree of soil degradation. Cover crops (CC) are widely accepted as sustainable crop management that reduces soil and water losses, restores organic matter, increases biodiversity and fertility in degraded agriculture soils. The agriculture land must shift into…
Comparative responses of ‘Gala’ and ‘Fuji’ apple trees to deficit irrigation: Placement versus volume effects
2012
Aims: Climate, soil water potential (SWP), leaf relative water content (RWC), stomatal conductance (gs), fruit and shoot growth, and carbohydrate levels were monitored during the 2008 and 2009 growing seasons to study the responses of 'Gala' and 'Fuji' apple trees to irrigation placement or volume. Methods: Three irrigation treatments were imposed, conventional irrigation (CI), partial root-zone drying (PRD, 50% of CI water on one side of the root-zone, which was alternated periodically), and continuous deficit irrigation (DI, 50% of CI water on both sides of the root-zone). Results: After each irrigation season, DI generated twice the soil water deficit (SWDint) than PRD (average of dry an…
Critical analysis of the thermal inertia approach to map soil water content under sparse vegetation and changeable sky conditions
2012
The paper reports a critical analysis of the thermal inertia approach to map surface soil water content on bare and sparsely vegetated soils by means of remotely sensed data. The study area is an experimental area located in Barrax (Spain). Field data were acquired within the Barrax 2011 research project. AHS airborne images including VIS/NIR and TIR bands were acquired both day and night time by the INTA (Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial) between the 11 th and 13 rd of June 2011. Images cover a corn pivot surrounded by bare soil, where a set of in situ data have been collected previously and simultaneously to overpasses. To validate remotely sensed estimations, a preliminary prox…
Development and analysis of the Soil Water Infiltration Global database
2018
27 Pags.- 11 Tabls.- 8 Figs. © Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Impact of reforestations with exotic and native species on water repellency of forest soils
2017
Forest duff layer is usually water repellent due to the hydrophobic organic compounds resulting from degradation of tree tissues. Transition from hydrophobic to wettable conditions, or vice versa, is largely controlled by water content. The objective of this investigation was to assess the influence of soil moisture on the degree of soil water repellency (WR) in exotic and native tree forests. Occurrence of WR was investigated by the water drop penetration time (WDPT) and the ethanol percentage (EP) tests. Sampling was conducted in the forest soils of two exotic species (Pinus pinaster, P, and Eucaliptus camaldulensis, E), used in the past for reforestation, and two native species (Quercus …
Effects of soil management techniques on soil water erosion in apricot orchards.
2016
Soil erosion is extreme in Mediterranean orchards due to management impact, high rainfall intensities, steep slopes and erodible parent material. Vall d'Albaida is a traditional fruit production area which, due to the Mediterranean climate and marly soils, produces sweet fruits. However, these highly productive soils are left bare under the prevailing land management and marly soils are vulnerable to soil water erosion when left bare. In this paper we study the impact of different agricultural land management strategies on soil properties (bulk density, soil organic matter, soil moisture), soil water erosion and runoff, by means of simulated rainfall experiments and soil analyses. Three rep…
Do stones modify the spatial distribution of fire induced soil water repellency? Preliminary data
2013
Water repellency is a property of many fire-affected soils that contributes to delayed wetting rates and shows many hydrological and geomorphological consequences. Fire-induced soil water repellency (SWR) may be modulated by pre-fire soil and vegetation properties. Many studies have been carried out to investigate the relationship between SWR and these properties. But, to our knowledge, no studies have considered the effect of surface stones in the spatial distribution of fire-induced SWR. In this research, we study the occurrence and spatial and vertical distribution of SWR and its consequences on soil structure after experimental burning in a previously wettable soil under different stone…
ASSESSING FAO-56 MODEL TO ESTIMATE TABLE OLIVE WATER CONSUME UNDER SOIL WATER DEFICIT CONDITIONS
2012
Agro-hydrological models can be considered an economic and simple tool to quantify crop water requirements. In the last two decades, agro-hydrological physically based models have been developed to simulate mass and energy exchange processes in the soil-plant-atmosphere system. Although very reliable, due to the high number of required variables, simplified models have been proposed as simple tools to quantify crop water consumes. The main aim of the paper is to assess, for a Sicilian orchard of table olive, the suitability of FAO-56 agro-hydrological model to estimate the crop transpiration under soil water deficit conditions. The model validation is carried out by means of measurements of…