Abstract

Modeling water stable isotope transport in soil is crucial to sharpen our understanding of water cycles in terrestrial ecosystems. However, isotope and soil water transport are not fully coupled in current models. In this study, we developed MOIST: a MATLAB-based one-dimensional isotope and soil water transport model, a program that solves one-dimensional water, heat, and isotope transport equations simultaneously. Results showed that the MOIST model has good agreements to the theoretical tests and semi-analytical solutions of isotope transport under fixed boundary conditions. Furthermore, we validated the program with short- and long-term measurements from lysimeters studies. The overall Nash-Sutcliff efficiency coefficient (NSE) of soil water and deuterium (2H) transport for the short-term measurements are 0.66 and 0.69, respectively, with respective determine coefficient (R2) of 0.82 and 0.70, mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.02 m3 m-3 and 11.84 ‰. For the long-term lysimeter study, the overall NSE, R2, and MAE of simulated δ18O are 0.47, 0.49, and 0.92 ‰, respectively. These indices indicated the excellent performance of the MOIST model in simulating water flow and isotope transport in simplified ecosystems, suggesting a great potential of our program in promoting understandings of ecohydrological processes in terrestrial ecosystems.

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