Abstract
Vegetation deterioration and soil loss are the main causes of more precipitation leakages and surface water shortages in degraded karst areas. In order to improve the utilization of water resources in such regions, water storage engineering has been considered; however, site selection and cost associated with the special karstic geological structure have made this difficult. According to the principle of the Soil Plant Atmosphere Continuum, increasing both vegetation cover and soil thickness would change water cycle process, resulting in a transformation from leaked blue water (liquid form) into green water (gas or saturated water form) for terrestrial plant ecosystems, thereby improving the utilization of water resources. Using the Soil Vegetation Atmosphere Transfer model and the geographical distributed approach, this study simulated the conversion from leaked blue water (leakage) into green water in the environs of Guiyang, a typical degraded karst area. The primary results were as follows: (1) Green water in the area accounted for <50% of precipitation, well below the world average of 65%; (2) Vegetation growth played an important role in converting leakage into green water; however, once it increased to 56%, its contribution to reducing leakage decreased sharply; (3) Increasing soil thickness by 20 cm converted the leakage considerably. The order of leakage reduction under different precipitation scenarios was dry year > normal year > rainy year. Thus, increased soil thickness was shown effective in improving the utilization ratio of water resources and in raising the amount of plant ecological water use; (4) The transformation of blue water into green water, which avoids constructions of hydraulic engineering, could provide an alternative solution for the improvement of the utilization of water resources in degraded karst area. Although there are inevitable uncertainties in simulation process, it has important significance for overcoming similar problems.
Highlights
China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute, Xicheng District, Beijing 100120, China; School of Geographic and Environmental Sciences, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang 550001, China; Academic Editor: Athanasios Loukas
In order to analyze the change of blue water and green water, based on the water balance principle and the Soil Plant Atmosphere Continuum (SPAC) principle, each component value of blue water and green water in the initial year (2003)
The verification value of vegetation interception was derived from field observation data obtained in Kaiyang County in Guiyang by Zhang et al (2007) [78]
Summary
China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute, Xicheng District, Beijing 100120, China; School of Geographic and Environmental Sciences, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang 550001, China; Academic Editor: Athanasios Loukas. Using the Soil Vegetation Atmosphere Transfer model and the geographical distributed approach, this study simulated the conversion from leaked blue water (leakage) into green water in the environs of Guiyang, a typical degraded karst area. “Green water”, which is a critical concept in ecological hydrology research, was proposed initially “Green water”, which is a critical concept in ecological hydrology research, was proposed initially in 1995 by Malin Falkenmark, a hydrologist with the Stockholm International Water Institute [1] She distinguished two types of precipitation: green water, which is stored in the soil and plants and distinguished two types of precipitation: green water, which is stored in the soil and plants and circulates within the terrestrial plant ecosystem, and blue water, which supplies aquatic ecosystems and circulates within the terrestrial plant ecosystem, and blue water, which supplies aquatic ecosystems human consumption (Figure 1). It has been established that about 65% of global precipitation is to the atmosphere via green water in the form from forests, grassland, wetland, returned to the atmosphere via green water inof theevapotranspiration form of evapotranspiration from forests, grassland, andwetland, farmland, whereas only about of global precipitation is retained in the form of blue water and farmland, whereas only about 35% of global precipitation is retained in the form of blue in rivers, lakes, and aquifers [2,3]
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