Making sense of cosmic-ray soil moisture measurements and eddy covariance data with regard to crop water use and field water balance

•Cosmic-ray neutron sensor (CRNS) measures water in surface soil at field scale.•CRNS measurements were comparable to point-based ones from soil cores & TDR.•Evapotranspiration (Et) based on soil water & eddy covariance were consistent.•APSIM accurately simulated the Et for a wheat and a bar...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Agricultural water management 2018-05, Vol.204, p.271-280
Main Authors: Wang, Enli, Smith, Chris J., Macdonald, Ben C.T., Hunt, James R., Xing, Hongtao, Denmead, O.T., Zeglin, Steve, Zhao, Zhigan, Isaac, Peter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
APSIM
Evapotranspiration
Modelling
Soil water dynamics
Surface versus deep layers
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Summary:•Cosmic-ray neutron sensor (CRNS) measures water in surface soil at field scale.•CRNS measurements were comparable to point-based ones from soil cores & TDR.•Evapotranspiration (Et) based on soil water & eddy covariance were consistent.•APSIM accurately simulated the Et for a wheat and a barley season.•Crop water uptake from CRNS layers accounted for 50–90% of the total water uptake. Changes in soil moisture influence the water availability to crop plants and soil ecological processes like carbon and nutrient cycling, impacting on crop productivity and environmental performance (greenhouse gas emissions, leaching) of agricultural systems. While traditional soil moisture measurements are done using point-based methods, the recent development of the cosmic-ray soil moisture neutron sensor (CRNS) offers the opportunity to measure soil water at the field scale. However, due to its shallow (
ISSN:0378-3774
1873-2283
DOI:10.1016/j.agwat.2018.04.017