IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v179y2017icp103-109.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Partitioning of evapotranspiration using a stable isotope technique in an arid and high temperature agricultural production system

Author

Listed:
  • Lu, Xuefei
  • Liang, Liyin L.
  • Wang, Lixin
  • Jenerette, G. Darrel
  • McCabe, Matthew F.
  • Grantz, David A.

Abstract

Agricultural production in the hot and arid low desert systems of southern California relies heavily on irrigation. A better understanding of how much and to what extent irrigated water is transpired by crops relative to being lost through evaporation would improve the management of increasingly limited water resources. In this study, we examined the partitioning of evapotranspiration (ET) over a field of forage sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), which was under evaluation as a potential biofuel feedstock, based on isotope measurements of three irrigation cycles at the vegetative stage. This study employed customized transparent chambers coupled with a laser-based isotope analyzer to continuously measure near-surface variations in the stable isotopic composition of evaporation (E, δE), transpiration (T, δT) and ET (δET) to partition the total water flux. Due to the extreme heat and aridity, δE and δT were very similar, which makes this system highly unusual. Contrary to an expectation that the isotopic signatures of T, E, and ET would become increasingly enriched as soils became drier, our results showed an interesting pattern that δE, δT, and δET increased initially as soil water was depleted following irrigation, but decreased with further soil drying in mid to late irrigation cycle. These changes are likely caused by root water transport from deeper to shallower soil layers. Results indicate that about 46% of the irrigated water delivered to the crop was used as transpiration, with 54% lost as direct evaporation. This implies that 28 − 39% of the total source water was used by the crop, considering the typical 60 − 85% efficiency of flood irrigation. The stable isotope technique provided an effective means of determining surface partitioning of irrigation water in this unusually harsh production environment. The results suggest the potential to further minimize unproductive water losses in these production systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Lu, Xuefei & Liang, Liyin L. & Wang, Lixin & Jenerette, G. Darrel & McCabe, Matthew F. & Grantz, David A., 2017. "Partitioning of evapotranspiration using a stable isotope technique in an arid and high temperature agricultural production system," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 103-109.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:179:y:2017:i:c:p:103-109
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2016.08.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377416302967
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.agwat.2016.08.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ding, Risheng & Kang, Shaozhong & Zhang, Yanqun & Hao, Xinmei & Tong, Ling & Du, Taisheng, 2013. "Partitioning evapotranspiration into soil evaporation and transpiration using a modified dual crop coefficient model in irrigated maize field with ground-mulching," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 85-96.
    2. Kang, Shaozhong & Gu, Binjie & Du, Taisheng & Zhang, Jianhua, 2003. "Crop coefficient and ratio of transpiration to evapotranspiration of winter wheat and maize in a semi-humid region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 239-254, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bian, Jiang & Hu, Xiaolong & Shi, Liangsheng & Min, Leilei & Zhang, Yucui & Shen, Yanjun & Zhao, Fenghua & Zha, Yuanyuan & Lian, Xie & Huang, Jiesheng, 2024. "Evapotranspiration partitioning by integrating eddy covariance, micro-lysimeter and unmanned aerial vehicle observations: A case study in the North China Plain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 295(C).
    2. Xia, Xiong & Hu, Deyong & Liu, Xin & Yue, Lingli & Ma, Bin & Chen, Yongzhong & Wu, Youjie, 2024. "Partitioning evapotranspiration of Camellia oleifera during the growing season based on the Penman-Monteith model combined with the micro-lysimeter and stable isotope methods," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 297(C).
    3. Jiao, Yinying & Zhu, Guofeng & Meng, Gaojia & Lu, Siyu & Qiu, Dongdong & Lin, Xinrui & Li, Rui & Wang, Qinqin & Chen, Longhu & Zhao, Ling & Yang, Jiangwei & Sun, Niu, 2023. "Estimating non-productive water loss in irrigated farmland in arid oasis regions: Based on stable isotope data," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).
    4. Lai, Jianbin & Liu, Tiegang & Luo, Yi, 2022. "Evapotranspiration partitioning for winter wheat with shallow groundwater in the lower reach of the Yellow River Basin," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 266(C).
    5. Feng, Yu & Hao, Weiping & Gao, Lili & Li, Haoru & Gong, Daozhi & Cui, Ningbo, 2019. "Comparison of maize water consumption at different scales between mulched and non-mulched croplands," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 315-324.
    6. Alam, Muhammad Shahinur & Lamb, David W. & Rahman, Muhammad Moshiur, 2019. "In-situ partitioning of evaporation and transpiration components using a portable evapotranspiration dome—A case study in Tall Fescue (Festuca arundinacea)," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 352-357.
    7. Zhu, Shihua & Fang, Xia & Cao, Liangzhong & Hang, Xin & Xie, Xiaoping & Sun, Liangxiao & Li, Yachun, 2023. "Multivariate drives and their interactive effects on the ratio of transpiration to evapotranspiration over Central Asia ecosystems," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 478(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zheng, Jing & Fan, Junliang & Zhang, Fucang & Zhuang, Qianlai, 2021. "Evapotranspiration partitioning and water productivity of rainfed maize under contrasting mulching conditions in Northwest China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    2. Qin, Shujing & Li, Sien & Kang, Shaozhong & Du, Taisheng & Tong, Ling & Ding, Risheng & Wang, Yahui & Guo, Hui, 2019. "Transpiration of female and male parents of seed maize in northwest China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 397-409.
    3. Zhao, Peng & Kang, Shaozhong & Li, Sien & Ding, Risheng & Tong, Ling & Du, Taisheng, 2018. "Seasonal variations in vineyard ET partitioning and dual crop coefficients correlate with canopy development and surface soil moisture," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 19-33.
    4. Feng, Yu & Gong, Daozhi & Mei, Xurong & Hao, Weiping & Tang, Dahua & Cui, Ningbo, 2017. "Energy balance and partitioning in partial plastic mulched and non-mulched maize fields on the Loess Plateau of China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 193-206.
    5. Wang, Yueyue & Horton, Robert & Xue, Xuzhang & Ren, Tusheng, 2021. "Partitioning evapotranspiration by measuring soil water evaporation with heat-pulse sensors and plant transpiration with sap flow gauges," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 252(C).
    6. Qiu, Rangjian & Li, Longan & Liu, Chunwei & Wang, Zhenchang & Zhang, Baozhong & Liu, Zhandong, 2022. "Evapotranspiration estimation using a modified crop coefficient model in a rotated rice-winter wheat system," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    7. Feng, Yu & Hao, Weiping & Gao, Lili & Li, Haoru & Gong, Daozhi & Cui, Ningbo, 2019. "Comparison of maize water consumption at different scales between mulched and non-mulched croplands," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 216(C), pages 315-324.
    8. Jiang, Xuelian & Kang, Shaozhong & Li, Fusheng & Du, Taisheng & Tong, Ling & Comas, Louise, 2016. "Evapotranspiration partitioning and variation of sap flow in female and male parents of maize for hybrid seed production in arid region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 132-141.
    9. Zhao, Yin & Mao, Xiaomin & Shukla, Manoj K. & Tian, Fei & Hou, Mengjie & Zhang, Tong & Li, Sien, 2021. "How does film mulching modify available energy, evapotranspiration, and crop coefficient during the seed–maize growing season in northwest China?," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    10. Zhao, Peng & Li, Sien & Li, Fusheng & Du, Taisheng & Tong, Ling & Kang, Shaozhong, 2015. "Comparison of dual crop coefficient method and Shuttleworth–Wallace model in evapotranspiration partitioning in a vineyard of northwest China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 41-56.
    11. Zhao, Nana & Liu, Yu & Cai, Jiabing & Paredes, Paula & Rosa, Ricardo D. & Pereira, Luis S., 2013. "Dual crop coefficient modelling applied to the winter wheat–summer maize crop sequence in North China Plain: Basal crop coefficients and soil evaporation component," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 93-105.
    12. Fan, Yubing & Wang, Chenggang & Nan, Zhibiao, 2014. "Comparative evaluation of crop water use efficiency, economic analysis and net household profit simulation in arid Northwest China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 335-345.
    13. Lian, Yanhao & Ali, Shahzad & Zhang, Xudong & Wang, Tianlu & Liu, Qi & Jia, Qianmin & Jia, Zhikuan & Han, Qingfang, 2016. "Nutrient and tillage strategies to increase grain yield and water use efficiency in semi-arid areas," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 137-147.
    14. Alberto, Ma. Carmelita R. & Quilty, James R. & Buresh, Roland J. & Wassmann, Reiner & Haidar, Sam & Correa, Teodoro Q. & Sandro, Joseph M., 2014. "Actual evapotranspiration and dual crop coefficients for dry-seeded rice and hybrid maize grown with overhead sprinkler irrigation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1-12.
    15. Yang, Xiaolin & Gao, Wangsheng & Shi, Quanhong & Chen, Fu & Chu, Qingquan, 2013. "Impact of climate change on the water requirement of summer maize in the Huang-Huai-Hai farming region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 20-27.
    16. Shao, Guomin & Han, Wenting & Zhang, Huihui & Liu, Shouyang & Wang, Yi & Zhang, Liyuan & Cui, Xin, 2021. "Mapping maize crop coefficient Kc using random forest algorithm based on leaf area index and UAV-based multispectral vegetation indices," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 252(C).
    17. Karandish, Fatemeh & Šimůnek, Jiří, 2016. "A field-modeling study for assessing temporal variations of soil-water-crop interactions under water-saving irrigation strategies," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 178(C), pages 291-303.
    18. Zhang, Fan & Zhang, Chenglong & Yan, Zehao & Guo, Shanshan & Wang, Youzhi & Guo, Ping, 2018. "An interval nonlinear multiobjective programming model with fuzzy-interval credibility constraint for crop monthly water allocation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 123-133.
    19. Haofang Yan & Song Huang & Jianyun Zhang & Chuan Zhang & Guoqing Wang & Lanlan Li & Shuang Zhao & Mi Li & Baoshan Zhao, 2022. "Comparison of Shuttleworth–Wallace and Dual Crop Coefficient Method for Estimating Evapotranspiration of a Tea Field in Southeast China," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-17, September.
    20. Pereira, L.S. & Paredes, P. & Hunsaker, D.J. & López-Urrea, R. & Mohammadi Shad, Z., 2021. "Standard single and basal crop coefficients for field crops. Updates and advances to the FAO56 crop water requirements method," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:179:y:2017:i:c:p:103-109. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.