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Doro, L., Jones, C., Williams, J. R., Norfleet, M. L., Izaurralde, R. C., Wang, X., et al. (2017). The Variable Saturation Hydraulic Conductivity Method for Improving Soil Water Content Simulation in EPIC and APEX Models. Vadose Zone Journal, 16(13).
Abstract: Soil water percolation is a key process in the life cycle of water in fields, watersheds, and river basins. The Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) and the Agricultural Policy/Environmental eXtender (APEX) are continuous models developed for evaluating the environmental effects of agricultural management. Traditionally, these models have simulated soil water percolation processes using a tipping-bucket approach, with the rate of flow limited by the saturated hydraulic conductivity. This simple approach often leads to inaccuracy in simulating elevated soil water conditions where soil water content (SWC) levels may remain above field capacity under prolonged wet weather periods or limited drainage. To overcome this deficiency, a new sub-model, the variable saturation hydraulic conductivity (VSHC) method, was developed for simulating soil water percolation processes using a nonlinear equation to estimate the effective hydraulic conductivity as a function of the SWC and soil properties. The VSHC method was evaluated at three sites in the United States and two sites in Europe. In addition, a numerical solution of the Richards equation was used as a benchmark for SWC comparison. Results show that the VSHC method substantially improves the accuracy of the SWC simulation in long-term simulations, particularly during wet periods. At the watershed scale, results on the Riesel Y2 watershed indicate that the VSHC method enhances model performance in the high-flow regime of channel peak flows because of the improved estimation of SWC, which implies that the improved SWC simulation at the field scale is beneficial to hydrologic modeling at the watershed scale.
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Malone, R. W., Kersebaum, K. C., Kaspar, T. C., Ma, L., Jaynes, D. B., & Gillette, K. (2017). Winter rye as a cover crop reduces nitrate loss to subsurface drainage as simulated by HERMES. Agric. Water Manage., 184, 156–169.
Abstract: HERMES is a widely used agricultural system model; however, it has never been tested for simulating N loss to subsurface drainage. Here, we integrated a simple drain flbw component into HERMES. We then compared the predictions to four years of data (2002-2005) from central Iowa fields in corn-oybean with winter rye as a cover crop (CC) and without winter rye (NCC). We also compared the HERMES predictions to the more complex Root Zone Water Quality Model (RZWQM) predictions for the same dataset. The average annual observed and simulated N loss to drain flow were 43.8 and 44.4 kg N/ha (NCC) and 17.6 and 18.9 kg N/ha (CC). The slightly over predicted N loss for CC was because of over predicted nitrate concentration, which may be partly caused by slightly under predicted average annual rye shoot N (observed and simulated values were 47.8 and 46.0 kg N/ha). Also, recent research from the site suggests that the soil field capacity may be greater in CC while we used the same soil parameters for both treatments. A local sensitivity analysis suggests that increased field capacity affects HERMES simulations, which includes reduced drain flow nitrate concentrations, increased denitrification, and reduced drain flow volume. HERMES-simulated cumulative monthly drain flow and annual drain flow were reasonable compared to field data and HERMES performance was comparable to other published drainage model tests. Unlike the RZWQM simulations, however, the modified HERMES did riot accurately simulate the year to year variability in nitrate concentration difference between NCC and CC, possibly due in part to the lack of partial mixing and displacement of the soil solution. The results suggest that 1) the relatively simple model HERMES is a promising tool to estimate annual N loss to drain flow under corn-soybean rotations with winter rye as a cover crop and 2) soil field capacity is a critical parameter to investigate to more thoroughly understand and appropriately model denitrification and N losses to subsurface drainage. Published by Elsevier B.V.
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