Soil water dynamics at a midlatitude test site: Field measurements and box modeling approaches

Abstract

► Simple box models can describe soil water dynamics at midlatitudes. ► The only meteorological forcing used is daily rainfall. ► Three models are validated both in “in-sample” and in forecast mode. ► Best model: leakage and evapotranspiration are nonlinear functions of soil water. We test the ability of three box models ( Milly, 1993 , Kim et al., 1996 , Laio et al., 2001b ) to describe soil moisture dynamics in a regularly monitored experimental site in northwestern Italy. The models include increasingly complex representations of leakage and evapotranspiration processes. We force the models with the local rainfall, and we determine model parameters with a least-square minimization procedure. We study separately summer and annual dynamics. When we use the models to reproduce annual dynamics, we include a simple representation of the annual cycle of evapotranspiration. We test the models both in simulation mode, estimating their parameters from the same data used to verify them, and in forecast mode, determining the model parameters from one period, and using them to forecast soil water dynamics in a different period. The results indicate that simple box models can estimate soil water dynamics at midlatitudes, using rainfall as the only meteorological driver. The models displaying the best performances include the representation of leakage and evapotranspiration as nonlinear functions of soil water content.