Evaluation of Surface Evaporation Considering the Effect of Soil Water Gradient
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 26, Issue 8
Abstract
Evaporation of unsaturated loess refers to the phenomenon that, under the vertical driving force, the water contained in soil moves to the evaporation surface and diffuses into the atmosphere as water vapor. This lowers the water content of unsaturated loess. The existing calculation methods of soil evaporation mainly consider environmental factors and soil water content. However, the soil water gradient (SWG), which has been ignored by previous studies, can also significantly affect loess evaporation. The objective of the present study was to establish an SWG-dependent evaporation prediction model for evaluating the SWG-affected evaporation of loess. First, the parameters of SWG-affected water evaporation of loess samples with changed densities and water contents were assessed by indoor and outdoor evaporation experiments. The results indicated that the ratio of soil evaporation to water evaporation (i.e., the evaporation coefficient) was mainly related to the water supply capacity of soil. The SWG exerted a large effect on loess surface evaporation, especially when the loess had high dry density and low surface water content. For example, the evaporation intensity of a soil sample with 6% (20%–26%) SWG and dry density was found to be 62.92% higher than that of a soil sample with 20% uniform water content; the evaporation intensity of a soil sample with 6% (15%–21%) SWG and dry density was found to be 114.24% higher than that of a soil sample with 15% uniform water content. Using both soil water content and SWG as parameters to characterize the soil water supply capacity can establish a model for the prediction of the unsaturated loess surface evaporation coefficient. Moreover, comparison of predicted and measured data ensured that the model can precisely predict the unsaturated loess surface evaporation coefficient.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
All data and models generated or used during the study appear in the published article. All data included in this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
Acknowledgments
The research described in this paper was financially supported by the Key Projects of Natural Science Basic Research of Shaanxi in China (No. 2020ZJ-49) and the Fund Program for the Key Research & Development Program of Shaanxi in China (No. 2018ZDCXL-SF-30-9).
References
Akpoti, K., E. O. Antwi, and A. T. Kabo-bah. 2016. “Impacts of rainfall variability, land use and land cover change on stream flow of the black Volta Basin, West Africa.” Hydrology 3 (3): 26. https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology3030026.
Alessia, F., C. Corrado, M. Renato, S. Carla, P. Tommaso, and V. G. Juan. 2018. “Experimental analyses of the evaporation dynamics in bare soils under natural conditions.” Water Resour. Manage. 32 (3): 1153–1166. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-017-1860-x.
Bouhlassa, S., B. Ammary, S. Paré, and N. Safsaf. 2016. “Integrating variations in the soil chloride profile and evaporativity for in-situ estimation of evaporation in arid zones: An application in south-eastern Morocco.” Hydrogeol. J. 24 (7): 1699–1706. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10040-016-1430-y.
Corti, T., M. Wüest, D. Bresch, and S. I. Seneviratne. 2011. “Drought-induced building damages from simulations at regional scale.” Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. 11 (12): 3335–3342. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-11-3335-2011.
Gray, D. M. 1970. Handbook on the principles of hydrology. Ottawa: Canadian National Committee for the International Hydrological Decade, National Research Council of Canada.
Jahangir, E., O. Deck, and F. Masrouri. 2013. “An analytical model of soil-structure interaction with swelling soils during droughts.” Comput. Geotech. 54 (Oct): 16–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2013.05.009.
Li, K., and Y. Li. 1991. “Evaporation performance of loess plateau soil under different water supply conditions.” Agric. Res. Arid Areas 3: 77–84.
Lin, B. B. 2010. “The role of agroforestry in reducing water loss through soil evaporation and crop transpiration in coffee agroecosystems.” Agric. For. Meteorol. 150 (4): 510–518. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2009.11.010.
Ma, Z. 2019. “Experimental study and numerical simulation of loess evaporation characteristics.” Master’s thesis, College of Civil Engineering, Xi’an Univ. of Architecture and Technology.
Merlin, O., et al. 2016. “Modeling soil evaporation efficiency in a range of soil and atmospheric conditions using a meta-analysis approach.” Water Resour. Res. 52 (5): 3663–3684. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015WR018233.
Penman, H. L. 1948. “Natural evaporation from open water, bare soil and grass.” Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 193 (1032): 120–145. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1948.0037.
Puppala, A. J., T. Manosuthkij, S. Nazarian, and L. R. Hoyos. 2011. “Threshold water content and matric suction potentials in expansive clays prior to initiation of cracking in pavements.” Can. Geotech. J. 48 (4): 519–531. https://doi.org/10.1139/t10-087.
Tran, D. T. Q., D. G. Fredlund, and D. H. Chan. 2016. “Improvements to the calculation of actual evaporation from bare soil surfaces.” Can. Geotech. J. 53 (1): 118–133. https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-2014-0512.
Wilson, G. W., and D. G. Fredlund. 1994. “Coupled soil-atmosphere modeling for soil evaporation.” Can. Geotech. J. 31 (2): 151–161. https://doi.org/10.1139/t94-021.
Wu, Y. 2010. “Study on the availability of soil moisture to typical plants in loess area.” Doctoral dissertation, Research Centre of Soil and Water Conservation, Ministry of Education, Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 15, 2020
Accepted: Apr 23, 2021
Published online: May 24, 2021
Published in print: Aug 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Oct 24, 2021
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.