Underlying Water Use Research Articles

Response of water use efficiency to summer drought in a boreal Scots pine forest in Finland

Abstract. The influence of drought on plant functioning has received considerable attention in recent years, however our understanding of the response of carbon and water coupling to drought in terrestrial ecosystems still needs to be improved. A severe soil moisture drought occurred in southern Finland in the late summer of 2006. In this study, we investigated the response of water use efficiency to summer drought in a boreal Scots pine forest (Pinus sylvestris) on the daily time scale mainly using eddy covariance flux data from the Hyytiälä (southern Finland) flux site. In addition, simulation results from the JSBACH land surface model were evaluated against the observed results. Based on observed data, the ecosystem level water use efficiency (EWUE; the ratio of gross primary production, GPP, to evapotranspiration, ET) showed a decrease during the severe soil moisture drought, while the inherent water use efficiency (IWUE; a quantity defined as EWUE multiplied with mean daytime vapour pressure deficit, VPD) increased and the underlying water use efficiency (uWUE, a metric based on IWUE and a simple stomatal model, is the ratio of GPP multiplied with a square root of VPD to ET) was unchanged during the drought. The decrease in EWUE was due to the stronger decline in GPP than in ET. The increase in IWUE was because of the decreased stomatal conductance under increased VPD. The unchanged uWUE indicates that the trade-off between carbon assimilation and transpiration of the boreal Scots pine forest was not disturbed by this drought event at the site. The JSBACH simulation showed declines of both GPP and ET under the severe soil moisture drought, but to a smaller extent compared to the observed GPP and ET. Simulated GPP and ET led to a smaller decrease in EWUE but a larger increase in IWUE because of the severe soil moisture drought in comparison to observations. As in the observations, the simulated uWUE showed no changes in the drought event. The model deficiencies exist mainly due to the lack of the limiting effect of increased VPD on stomatal conductance during the low soil moisture condition. Our study provides a deeper understanding of the coupling of carbon and water cycles in the boreal Scots pine forest ecosystem and suggests possible improvements to land surface models, which play an important role in the prediction of biosphere–atmosphere feedbacks in the climate system.

Measuring and modeling the impact of a severe drought on terrestrial ecosystem CO2 and water fluxes in a subtropical forest

AbstractA severe drought occurred in central and southern China in the summer of 2013. The precipitation dropped to less than 25% of the long‐term average, and temperatures were abnormally high for more than 2 months with return periods of 125 years and 301 years, respectively, which induced significant changes in the terrestrial ecohydrological cycle. In this study, the impact of the severe drought on a subtropical forest ecosystem was investigated using measurements from a newly established flux tower and simulations performed by the Community Land Model version 4.5 (CLM4.5). Based on in situ observations, we found that both gross primary production (GPP) and evapotranspiration experienced strong reductions of 76% and 40%, respectively, during the prolonged dry and hot spell. There was an exponential relationship between ecosystem respiration (Reco) and temperatures when soil moisture was not too dry, but Reco decreased along with GPP when the temperature exceeded 32°C and soil moisture was below 0.14 m3 m−3. The ecosystem even switched to a net source of carbon in late August. The model captured the variations in water vapor fluxes well, with correlation coefficients r > 0.88, but overestimated net ecosystem CO2 exchange because it did not adequately represent carbon fluxes responses to water stress and failed to capture the nonlinear relationship between GPP and Reco during the drought period. The long‐term simulation suggested that water availability severely limited carbon sequestration, and both the underlying water use efficiency and inherent water use efficiency reached their maximum values.

Global variations in ecosystem-scale isohydricity.

Droughts are expected to become more frequent and more intense under climate change. Plant mortality rates and biomass declines in response to drought depend on stomatal and xylem flow regulation. Plants operate on a continuum of xylem and stomatal regulation strategies from very isohydric (strict regulation) to very anisohydric. Coexisting species may display a variety of isohydricity behaviors. As such, it can be difficult to predict how to model the degree of isohydricity at the ecosystem scale by aggregating studies of individual species. This is nonetheless essential for accurate prediction of ecosystem drought resilience. In this study, we define a metric for the degree of isohydricity at the ecosystem scale in analogy with a recent metric introduced at the species level. Using data from the AMSR-E satellite, this metric is evaluated globally based on diurnal variations in microwave vegetation optical depth (VOD), which is directly related to leaf water potential. Areas with low annual mean radiation are found to be more anisohydric. Except for evergreen broadleaf forests in the tropics, which are very isohydric, and croplands, which are very anisohydric, land cover type is a poor predictor of ecosystem isohydricity, in accordance with previous species-scale observations. It is therefore also a poor basis for parameterizing water stress response in land-surface models. For taller ecosystems, canopy height is correlated with higher isohydricity (so that rainforests are mostly isohydric). Highly anisohydric areas show either high or low underlying water use efficiency. In seasonally dry locations, most ecosystems display a more isohydric response (increased stomatal regulation) during the dry season. In several seasonally dry tropical forests, this trend is reversed, as dry-season leaf-out appears to coincide with a shift toward more anisohydric strategies. The metric developed in this study allows for detailed investigations of spatial and temporal variations in plant water behavior.

Partitioning evapotranspiration based on the concept of underlying water use efficiency

AbstractEvapotranspiration (ET) is dominated by transpiration (T) in the terrestrial water cycle. However, continuous measurement of transpiration is still difficult, and the effect of vegetation on ET partitioning is unclear. The concept of underlying water use efficiency (uWUE) was used to develop a new method for ET partitioning by assuming that the maximum, or the potential uWUE is related to T while the averaged or apparent uWUE is related to ET. T/ET was thus estimated as the ratio of the apparent over the potential uWUE using half‐hourly flux data from 17 AmeriFlux sites. The estimated potential uWUE was shown to be essentially constant for 14 of the 17 sites, and was broadly consistent with the uWUE evaluated at the leaf scale. The annual T/ET was the highest for croplands, i.e., 0.69 for corn and 0.62 for soybean, followed by grasslands (0.60) and evergreen needle leaf forests (0.56), and was the lowest for deciduous broadleaf forests (0.52). The enhanced vegetation index (EVI) was shown to be significantly correlated with T/ET and could explain about 75% of the variation in T/ET among the 71 site‐years. The coefficients of determination between EVI and T/ET were 0.84 and 0.82 for corn and soybean, respectively, and 0.77 for deciduous broadleaf forests and grasslands, but only 0.37 for evergreen needle leaf forests. This ET partitioning method is sound in principle and simple to apply in practice, and would enhance the value and role of global FLUXNET in estimating T/ET variations and monitoring ecosystem dynamics.

Daily underlying water use efficiency for AmeriFlux sites

Water use efficiency (WUE) is a crucial parameter to describe the interrelationship between gross primary production (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET). Incorporating the nonlinear effect of vapor pressure deficit (VPD), underlying WUE (uWUE = GPP · VPD0.5/ET) is better than inherent WUE (IWUE = GPP · VPD/ET) at the half-hourly time scale. However, appropriateness of uWUE has not yet been evaluated at the daily time scale. To determine whether uWUE is better than IWUE, daily data for seven vegetation types from 34 AmeriFlux sites were used to validate uWUE at the daily time scale. First, daily mean VPD was shown to be a good substitute for the effective VPD that was required to preserve daily GPP totals. Second, an optimal exponent, k*, corresponding to the best linear relationship between GPP · VPDk* and ET, was about 0.55 both at half-hourly and daily time scales. Third, correlation coefficient between GPP · VPDk and ET showed that uWUE (k = 0.5 and r = 0.85) was a better approximation of the optimal WUE (k = k* and r = 0.86) than IWUE (k = 1 and r = 0.81) at the daily scale. Finally, when yearly uWUE was used to predict daily GPP from daily ET and mean VPD, uWUE worked considerably better than IWUE. Comparing observed and predicted daily GPP, the average correlation coefficient and Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient of efficiency were 0.81 and 0.59, respectively, using yearly uWUE, and only 0.59 and −0.83 using yearly IWUE. As a nearly optimal WUE, uWUE consistently outperformed IWUE and could be used to evaluate the effects of global warming and elevated atmosphere CO2 on carbon assimilation and evapotranspiration.

Sectorial water use trends in the urbanizing Pearl River Delta, China.

Assessing and managing water use is crucial for supporting sustainable river basin management and regional development. The first consistent and comprehensive assessment of sectorial water use in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) is presented by analysing homogenized annual water use data from 2000 to 2010 in relation to socio economic statistics for the same period. An abstraction of water use, using the concept of water use intensity, and based on equations inspired by those used in global water resource models, is developed to explore the driving forces underlying water use changes in domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors. We do this at both the level of the region as a whole, as well as for the nine cities that constitute the PRD separately. We find that, despite strong population and economic growth, the PRD managed to stabilize its absolute water use by significant improvements in industrial water use intensities, and early stabilisation of domestic water use intensities. Results reveal large internal differentiation of sectorial water use among the cities in this region, with industrial water use intensity varying from -80 to +95% and domestic water use intensity by +/- 30% compared to the PRD average. In general, per capita water use is highest in the cities that industrialised first. Yet, all cities except Guangzhou are expected to approach a saturation value of per capita water use much below what is suggested in recent global studies. Therefore, existing global assessments probably have overestimated future domestic water use in developing countries. Although scarce and uncertain input data and model limitations lead to a high level of uncertainty, the presented conceptualization of water use is useful in exploring the underlying driving forces of water use trends.

The effect of vapor pressure deficit on water use efficiency at the subdaily time scale

AbstractWater use efficiency is a critical index for describing carbon‐water coupling in terrestrial ecosystems. However, the nonlinear effect of vapor pressure deficit (VPD) on carbon‐water coupling has not been fully considered. To improve the relationship between gross primary production (GPP) and evapotranspiration (ET) at the subdaily time scale, we propose a new underlying water use efficiency (uWUE = GPP · VPD0.5/ET) and a hysteresis model to minimize time lags among GPP, ET, and VPD. Half‐hourly data were used to validate uWUE for seven vegetation types from 42 AmeriFlux sites. Correlation analysis shows that the GPP · VPD0.5 and ET relationship (r = 0.844) is better than that between GPP · VPD and ET (r = 0.802). The hysteresis model supports the GPP · VPD0.5 and ET relationship. As uWUE is related to CO2 concentration, its use can improve estimates of GPP and ET and help understand the effect of CO2 fertilization on carbon storage and water loss.