Numerical Modeling of Soil Water–Heat Transport under Oxo-Biodegradable Film Mulch and the Optimal Mulching Period
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 9
Abstract
Timely monitoring and regulation of the transport and distribution of soil water and heat are appropriate methods to ensure and improve crop yields. With the degradation of the oxo-biodegradable film, the upper boundary condition is a time-variable boundary, and soil water-heat transport is more complicated, comparing with conventional plastic film. Based on HYDRUS-2D version 2.02 and the characteristics of mulching films, a soil water-heat coupled transport mathematical model of drip irrigation was established, and the simulated soil water content and temperature were tested against three-year field observations for calibration and validation purposes. The model prediction demonstrated that the induction periods of oxo-biodegradable film mulching differed in different hydrological years. In normal flow years, an induction period of 50–80 days had higher water use efficiency. While the window would increase to 50–100 days in low flow years. As for temperature, comparing with conventional plastic film mulching, the decreasing trend of temperature started to slow down when the induction period increased to 70 days. Therefore, the optimal induction period of the oxo-biodegradable film is 50–70 days.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51539005, and 51769024), the Program for Technology Support (2014BAD12B03). Yayang Feng conducted the statistical analysis and wrote the paper. The research ideas and methods were affirmed by Professor Haibin Shi, who helped to revise the paper. Qiong Jia, Jingwei Li, Ning Wang, and Kunlun Zhu helped in data collection. Xuesong Cao and Qingfeng Miao helped with language editing and some data analyses.
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Received: May 1, 2020
Accepted: Dec 11, 2020
Published online: Jun 28, 2021
Published in print: Sep 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Nov 28, 2021
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