Search results for "ecohydrology"
showing 10 items of 23 documents
An Ecohydrological Cellular Automata Model Investigation of Juniper Tree Encroachment in a Western North American Landscape
2016
Woody plant encroachment over the past 140 years has substantially changed grasslands in western North American. We studied encroachment of western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis var. occidentalis) into a previously mixed shrubâgrassland site in central Oregon (USA) using a modified version of Cellular Automata TreeâGrassâShrub Simulator (CATGraSS) ecohydrological model. We developed simple algorithms to simulate three encroachment factors (grazing, fire frequency reduction, and seed dispersal by herbivores) in CATGraSS. Local ecohydrological dynamics represented by the model were first evaluated using satellite-derived leaf area index and measured evapotranspiration data. Reconstruc…
Salinity and periodic inundation controls on the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum of gray mangroves
2017
Salinity and periodic inundation are both known to have a major role in shaping the ecohydrology of mangroves through their controls on water uptake, photosynthesis, stomatal conductance, gas-exchanges and nutrient availability. Salinity, in particular, can be considered one of the main abiotic regulating factors for halophytes and salt tolerant species, due to its influence on water use patterns and growth rate. Ecohydrological literature has rarely focused on the effects of salinity on plant transpiration, based on the fact that the terrestrial plants mostly thrive in low saline, unsaturated soils where the role of osmotic potential can be considered negligible. However, the effect of sal…
Mechanisms of shrub encroachment into Northern Chihuahuan Desert grasslands and impacts of climate change investigated using a cellular automata model
2016
Arid and semiarid grasslands of southwestern North America have changed dramatically over the last 150 years as a result of woody plant encroachment. Overgrazing, reduced fire frequency, and climate change are known drivers of woody plant encroachment into grasslands. In this study, relatively sim- ple algorithms for encroachment factors (i.e., grazing, grassland fires, and seed dispersal by grazers) are proposed and implemented in the ecohydrological Cellular-Automata Tree Grass Shrub Simulator (CAT- GraSS). CATGraSS is used in a 7.3 km 2 rectangular domain located in central New Mexico along a zone of grassland to shrubland transition, where shrub encroachment is currently active. CATGraS…
Climate changes effects on vegetation in Mediterranean areas
2009
The Mediterranean ecosystems evolved under climatic conditions characterized by precipitations markedly out of phase with the growing period for the vegetation there established. In such environments, deep and shallow rooted species cohabit and compete each other. The formers, being characterized by deeper root, are able to utilize the water stored during the dormant season, while the conditions of shallow rooted plant are closely related to the intermittence of the precipitations. A numerical model has been here used in order to carry out an analysis of the potential climate changes influence on the vegetation state in a typical Mediterranean environment, such as Sicilian one. The most imp…
Ecohydrology in Mediterranean areas: a numerical model to describe growing seasons out of phase with precipitations
2008
The probabilistic description of soil moisture dynamics is a relatively new topic in hydrology. The most common ecohydrological models start from a stochastic differential equation describing the soil water balance, where the unknown quantity, the soil moisture, depends both on spaces and time. Most of the solutions existing in literature are obtained in a probabilistic framework and under steady-state condition; even if this last condition allows the analytical handling of the problem, it has considerably simplified the same problem by subtracting generalities from it. <br><br> The steady-state hypothesis, appears perfectly applicable in arid and semiarid climatic areas like th…
Transient Soil Moisture Dynamics and Climate Change in Mediterranean Ecosystems
2008
Plants in Mediterranean ecosystems have developed different strategies to cope with transient soil-moisture dynamics induced by the markedly out of phase seasonal behavior of rainfall and temperature. Deep-rooted plants use the soil moisture stored in the wet winter (extensive users), while shallower rooted plants exploit both the wet season storage and the more sporadic growing season rainfall (intensive users). Using stochastic models of soil moisture dynamics, we present an analytical and numerical description of the probabilistic structure of the soil-moisture storage at the beginning of the growing season in relation to the dynamics of the wet season, and then study its evolution durin…
Ecohydrology in Mediterranean areas: a numerical model to describe growing seasons out of phase with precipitations
2007
Combining Mechanistic Approaches for Studying Eco-Hydro-Geomorphic Coupling
2008
ECOHYDROLOGICAL MODELLING IN MEDITERRANEAN AREAS AND WETLANDS
2010
La seguente dissertazione verte sul campo di ricerca noto come Ecoidrologia. Sebbene tale scienza, che studia le mutue interazioni fra ciclo idrologico e gli ecosistemi naturali, sia stata recentemente oggetto di svariati studi, alcuni dei suoi numerosi aspetti rimangono tuttavia ancora alquanto inesplorati. L’obiettivo principale della presente tesi è quello di rivisitare la letteratura scientifica esistente sull’argomento, cercando di adattare concetti e modelli sviluppati per certi ecosistemi anche alle peculiarità di altri ambienti meno studiati, come quelli aridi e semiaridi tipici della zona Mediterranea o le cosiddette “wetlands”, zone umide e paludose. In particolare, viene approfon…
Development of innovative approaches for evaluating drought vulnerability and selecting innovative practices for managing water shortage (in Sicily)
2013
The climate, especially with regard to the precipitation and the evapotranspiration processes, plays a fundamental role in the vegetational patterns formation and modifications. The pilot project here described tries to evaluate in a quantitative way the impact of different climatic regimes (current or future) on vegetation health status and its physiological processes. In particular, an ecohydrological approach has been adopted in order to carry out an analysis of the potential climate changes influence on the vegetation state in a typical Mediterranean environment, such as the Sicilian one.