Can a parsimonious model implemented with satellite data be used for modelling the vegetation dynamics and water cycle in water-controlled environments?

Vegetation plays a key role in catchment's water balance, particularly in semi-arid regions that are generally water-controlled ecosystems. Nowadays, many of the available dynamic vegetation models are quite complex and they have high parametrical requirements. However, in operational applicati...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecological modelling 2016-03, Vol.324, p.45-53
Main Authors: Ruiz-Pérez, G., González-Sanchis, M., Del Campo, A.D., Francés, F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Dynamic vegetation model
Dynamics
ecosystems
equations
hydrologic cycle
Mathematical analysis
Mathematical models
Modelling
Parsimonious
remote sensing
Satellite data
Satellite observation
Satellites
Semi-arid
semiarid zones
soil water
Vegetation
water balance
Water fluxes
watersheds
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Vegetation plays a key role in catchment's water balance, particularly in semi-arid regions that are generally water-controlled ecosystems. Nowadays, many of the available dynamic vegetation models are quite complex and they have high parametrical requirements. However, in operational applications the available information is quite limited. Therefore parsimonious models together with available satellite information can be valuable tools to predict vegetation dynamics. In this work, we focus on a parsimonious model aimed to simulate vegetation and hydrological dynamics, using both field measurements and satellite information to implement it. The results suggest that the model is able to adequately reproduce the dynamics of vegetation as well as the soil moisture variations. In other words, it has been shown that a parsimonious model with simple equations can achieve good results in general terms and it is possible to assimilate satellite and field observations for the model implementation.
ISSN:0304-3800
1872-7026
DOI:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2016.01.002