New Zealand is dominated by its agricultural industry with one of the most intensive farming practices being that of intensive dairying. New Zealand currently has approximately 5.3 million dairy cows that excrete up to 2.2 L of urine, per urination event, up to 12 times per day. This equates to 5.1 x10¹⁰ L per year or enough urine to fill over 1.2 million milk tankers. This sheer volume of urine and its associated N content has implications for the cycling of N within the pasture soils utilised, and New Zealand’s greenhouse gas budget due to the emission of N₂O from urine affected areas. The emission of nitric oxide (NO) from agricultural systems is also receiving increasing attention due to concerns about alterations in the balance of atmospheric trace gases and sinks. Worldwide there is a dearth of information with respect to the emissions of NO from urine-N deposition onto soils with only two in situ studies and no studies on the effects of soil pH, environmental variables or urine-N rate on NO fluxes. This present study has provided some fundamental information on the factors and processes affecting the emission of NO from bovine urine applied to pasture soils. Five experiments were performed in total; three laboratory experiments and two field experiments. The first laboratory experiment (chapter 4) examined the effect of the initial soil pH on NOx emissions from urine-N applied at 500 kg N ha⁻¹. Soil was treated to alter the initial soil pH over the range of 4.4 to 7.6. Initial soil pH affected rates of nitrification which in turn affected the decline in soil pH. Emissions of NO increased with increasing soil pH. However, a strong positive linear relationship was established between the NO-N flux, expressed as a percentage of the net NH4⁺-N depletion rate, and the level of soil acidity. The NO-N fluxes were higher under the more acidic soil conditions where N turnover was lower. The fluxes of N₂O did not follow the same pattern and were attributed to biological mechanisms. In experiment two (chapter 5) the objectives were to concurrently examine the effects of varying the soil temperature and the water-filled pore space (WFPS) on NOx emissions from urine-N. In this experiment increasing the soil temperature enhanced both the rate of nitrification and the rate of decrease in soil pH. The relationship between the net NO-N flux, expressed as a percentage of the net NH4⁺-N depletion rate, and the level of soil acidity was again demonstrated at the warmest soil temperature (22°C) where soil acidification had progressed sufficiently to enable abiotic NO formation. The NO-N fluxes increased with decreasing soil moisture and increasing soil acidity indicating abiotic factors were responsible for NO production. The Q10 response of the NO flux between 5 to 15°C decreased from 4.3 to 1.5 as WFPS increased from 11% to 87% respectively. Fluxes of N₂O increased with increasing WFPS and temperature indicating that denitrification was the dominant process. Results from experiments 2 and 3 indicated that the rate of nitrification had a direct bearing on the ensuing soil acidity and that it was this in conjunction with the available inorganic-N pools that affected NOx production. Therefore the third experiment examined the effect of urine-N rate on NOx emissions, with urine-N rate varied over 5 levels from 0 to 1000 kg N ha⁻¹, the highest rate being that found under maximal urine-N inputs to pasture. Rates of nitrification were diminished at the highest rates of urine-N applied and decreases in soil acidity were not as rapid due to this. Again significant but separate linear relationships were developed, for each urine-N rate used, between the NO-N flux, expressed as a percentage of the net NH4⁺-N depletion rate, and the level of soil acidity. The slope of these relationships increased with increasing urine-N rate. The NO-N flux, expressed as a percentage of the net NH4⁺-N depletion rate, versus soil acidity was higher under 1000 kg N ha⁻¹, despite the lower soil acidity in this treatment. This indicated that the enhanced inorganic-N pool was also playing a role in increasing the NO flux. The N₂O fluxes were of limited duration in this experiment possibly due to conditions being disadvantageous for denitrification. In the field experiments two urine-N rates were examined under both summer and winter conditions at two urine-N rates. The emission factors after 71 days for NO-N in the summer were 0.15 and 0.20% of the urine-N applied for the 500 and 1000 kg N ha⁻¹ rates respectively while the respective N₂O-N fluxes were 0.14 and 0.16%. Under winter conditions the emission factors after 42 days for NO-N were <0.001% of the urine-N applied regardless of urine-N rate while the N₂O-N fluxes were 0.05 and 0.09% for the 500 and 1000 kg N ha⁻¹ urine-N rates respectively. The relationships and predictors of NO-N flux determined in the laboratory studies did not serve as strong indicators of the NO-N flux under summer conditions. Low emissions from urine-N over winter were due to the low soil temperatures and high WFPS. These studies have demonstrated that soil chemical and environmental variables influence the production of NOx and N₂O emissions from urine-N applied to soil and that seasonal effects have a significant impact on the relative amounts of NO-N and N₂O-N emitted from urine patches. Suggestions for future work are also made.

The Calapooia River, a major tributary of the Willamette River in western Oregon, is a watershed typical of many found in the Willamette Basin. Public and private forested lands occur in the steep Upper Zone of the watershed, mixed forest and agriculture lands are found in the Middle Zone, and the Lower Zone of the watershed is comprised primarily of grass seed agriculture on relatively flat topography with poorly drained soils. High levels of dissolved nitrogen (DN) have been identified as a water-quality concern within the Calapooia River. To gain a better understanding of the relationship between landuse/landcover (LULC), soil drainage, and DN dynamics within the watershed on a seasonal basis, we selected 44 sub-basins ranging in size between 3 and 33 km² for monthly synoptic surface water-quality sampling from October 2003 through September 2004. We selected an additional 31 sample locations along the length of the Calapooia River to determine relative influence of the 44 sub-basins on DN concentrations in the river. T-tests were used to analyze differences between zones (Upper, Middle and Lower) and regression analysis was used to determine relationships between DN and LULC or soil drainage class. The agriculture-dominated sub-basins had significantly higher (< 0.05) DN concentrations than the predominantly forested sub-basins. Winter concentrations of nitrate-N were 43 times higher in agriculturally dominated sub-basins than in forested sub-basins, whereas in the spring, the difference was only 7-fold. High DN concentrations associated with the predominantly agriculture sub-basins were substantially reduced once they mixed with water in the Calapooia River, highlighting the likelihood that water draining the relatively nutrient-poor, forested sub-basins from the Upper Zone of the watershed, was diluting DN-rich water from the agriculture sub-basins. Relationships between DN and agriculture, woody vegetation or poorly drained soils were moderate to strong (0.50 < R² > 0.85) during the winter, spring and summer seasons. Results indicated an exponential increase in DN concentration when proportion agriculture or poorly drained soils increased, whereas an increase in woody vegetation was related to an exponential decrease in DN concentration. The high variability in DN concentration in the agriculture-dominated sub-basins suggests factors in addition to LULC and poorly drained soils influence DN in surface water. Seasonal relationships were developed between DN and proportion of poorly drained soils, agriculture, and woody vegetation at differing scales (10 m, 20 m, 30 m, 60 m, 90 m, 150 m, 300 m, and entire sub-basin), which we defined as Influence Zones (IZs), surrounding the stream network. Correlations between DN and proportion LULC or poorly drained soil at each IZ were analyzed for significant differences (p-value < 0.05) using the Hotelling-Williams test. Our results show strong seasonal correlations (r > 0.80) between DN and proportion of woody vegetation or agriculture, and moderate-to-strong seasonal correlations (r > 0.60) between DN and proportion of sub-basins with poorly drained soils. Altering scale of analysis significantly changed correlations between LULC and DN, with IZs < 150 m generally having higher correlations than the sub-basin level. In contrast, DN correlations with poorly drained soil were generally higher at the sub-basin scale than the 60- through 10-m IZs during winter and spring. These results indicate that scale of analysis is an important factor when determining relationships between DN concentration and proportion LULC or poorly drained soils. Furthermore, seasonal shifts in significant differences among IZs for correlations between LULC and DN suggest land management proximity and its influence on DN concentration changes temporally. DN relationships with poorly drained soil suggest that during winter and spring, when rainfall is highest, sub-basin scale soil drainage properties have a greater influence on DN than soil properties within IZs in close proximity to the stream network. / Graduation date: 2006

This study evaluated the applicability of remote sensing instrumentation for site- specific management of abiotic and biotic stress on cotton grown under a center pivot. Three different irrigation regimes (100%, 75%, and 50% ETc) were imposed on a cotton field to 1) monitor canopy temperatures of cotton with infrared thermometers (IRTs) in order to pinpoint areas of biotic and abiotic stress, 2) compare aerial infrared photography to IRTs mounted on center pivots to correlate areas of biotic and abiotic stress, and 3) relate yield to canopy temperatures. Pivot-mounted IRTs and IR camera were able to differentiate water stress between the irrigation regimes, however, only the IR camera was effectively able to distinguish between biotic (cotton root rot) and abiotic (drought) stress with the assistance of groundtruthing. The 50% ETc regime had significantly higher canopy temperatures, which were reflected in significantly lower lint yields when compared to the 75% and 100% ETc regimes. Deficit irrigation up to 75% ETc had no impact on yield, indicating that water savings were possible without yield depletion.

Graduation date: 1992

A series of land-use-land-cover-change (LULCC) based sensitivity experiments, including changes in vegetation type, fractional vegetation (FV), and soil moisture (SM), over Western Kentucky were conducted to investigate atmospheric response to land-use. The choice of land-use for this study was chosen in the context of Western Kentucky’s historical LULCC. For this study, vegetation types considered were grassland, forest, and bare soil with further variations in FV for grassland and forest at 25, 50, 75, and 100 % and systematic increases and decreases in volumetric SM of 0.05, 0.10, and 0.15 m3 m-3. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first assessment of its kind that incorporates these types of LULCC in a single study. In addition, typical anthropogenic land-use change often incorporates several types of LULCC. Moreover, this assessment provides a robust analysis of the impacts LULCC has on atmospheric processes over Western Kentucky. To simulate the importance of land-use on atmospheric processes, a well known meso-scale model developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) MM5 coupled with an intermediately complex land surface model (LSM) Noah was used. The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of multiple types of LULCC on planetary boundary layer (PBL) evolution, PBL stability, near surface 3D-wind fields, temperature, and moisture. Furthermore, it is anticipated that multiple types of LULCC will provide more insight into the complex nonlinear land-atmosphere interactions from atmospheric, air quality, and climatology perspectives. Modeling analysis revealed the importance of land-use on atmospheric processes. Changes in all three types of LULCC (land-cover, FV, and SM) altered the distribution of surface energy and moisture, PBL structure, 3D-wind fields, and PBL stability. In general, it was found that LULCC that enhanced (diminished) ET rates reduced (increased) sensible heat flux, atmospheric temperature and, and PBL heights below (above) control (CTRL). For instance, the conversion of land-cover from CTRL to grassland reduced 2 m temperature and PBL heights by 0.60 °C and 228 m respectively compared to CTRL due to an evaporative advantage (lower stomata resistance). Multiple types of land-use change were found to either offset or enhance overall modeled response to LULCC. A reduction in FV to 25 % over grassland diminished ET despite the evaporation advantage of grassland and increased 2 m temperature and PBL heights with respect to CTRL by 3.3 °C and 504 m. These results significantly altered horizontal and vertical wind fields, affecting moisture advection and the development of meso-scale circulations. Compared to CTRL, these differences were enhanced over drier soils, but muted over moist soils. Moreover, the impact of LULCC on atmosphere evolution was not only dependent on the type of LULCC, but also on the current state of other unaltered land surface features such as vegetation type, FV, and SM. Alterations to modeled PBL development, as a result of LULCC, can have important impacts on a region’s climatology and air quality. Simulated changes in typical PBL moisture and temperature through time can affect local and regional climatology. Depending on the type of LULCC, these alterations in climate may lead to localized cooling. In addition, it was further hypothesized that changes in PBL height can affect air quality. Given the capping inversion layer at the top of the PBL, changes in PBL heights can significantly affect air quality with lower (higher) PBL heights diminishing (enhancing) air quality. Moreover, this research prescribes the importance of considering LULCC in atmospheric assessments of climatology and air quality, including pollutant dispersion and trajectory modeling.

Soil moisture condition of a watershed plays a significant role in separation of rainfall into infiltration and surface runoff, and hence is a key parameter for the majority of physical hydrological models. Due to the large difference in dielectric constants of dry soil and water, microwave remote sensing and particularly the commonly available synthetic aperture radar is a potential tool for such studies. The main aim of this study is to produce the distributed soil moisture maps of a catchment from active microwave imagery. For this purpose, nine field trips are performed within a small basin in western Anatolia and point surface soil moisture values are collected with a Time Domain Reflectometer. The field studies are planned to match radar image acquisitions and accomplished over the water year of 2004 - 2005. In this context, first, the Dubois Model, a semi-empirical backscatter model is utilized in the reverse order to develop radar backscatter &amp / #8211 / soil roughness relationship and soil roughness maps of the study area are obtained. Then another relationship is built between radar backscatter and the three governing surface parameters: local incidence angle, soil moisture and soil roughness, which is later used in the soil moisture estimation methods. Depending on land use and vegetation cover condition, surface soil moisture maps of the catchment are produced by Backscatter Correction Factors, Water Cloud Model and Basin Indexes methods. In the last part of the study, the soil moisture maps of the basin are input to a semi-distributed hydrological model, HEC-HMS, as the initial soil moisture condition of a flood event simulation. In order to investigate the contribution of distributed initial soil moisture data on model outputs, simulation of the same flood event is also performed with the lumped initial soil moisture condition. Finally, a comparison between both the distributed and lumped model simulation outputs and with the observed data is carried out.

This study evaluated the applicability of remote sensing instrumentation for site- specific management of abiotic and biotic stress on cotton grown under a center pivot. Three different irrigation regimes (100%, 75%, and 50% ETc) were imposed on a cotton field to 1) monitor canopy temperatures of cotton with infrared thermometers (IRTs) in order to pinpoint areas of biotic and abiotic stress, 2) compare aerial infrared photography to IRTs mounted on center pivots to correlate areas of biotic and abiotic stress, and 3) relate yield to canopy temperatures. Pivot-mounted IRTs and IR camera were able to differentiate water stress between the irrigation regimes, however, only the IR camera was effectively able to distinguish between biotic (cotton root rot) and abiotic (drought) stress with the assistance of groundtruthing. The 50% ETc regime had significantly higher canopy temperatures, which were reflected in significantly lower lint yields when compared to the 75% and 100% ETc regimes. Deficit irrigation up to 75% ETc had no impact on yield, indicating that water savings were possible without yield depletion.

Darbe analizuojami Kauno apskrities ūkininkų ūkiai, jų sausinimo ir drėkinimo sistemų poreikis, priklausomybė nuo ūkio veiklos. Analizei panaudoti ūkininkų, užsiimančių žemdirbyste, apklausos duomenys. Aktualiausia problema - išsiaiškinti drėkinimo sistemų poreikį Kauno apskrities žemdirbystės ūkiuose. Siekiant optimaliai padidinti derliaus apimtis, svarbu palaikyti tinkamą drėgmės kiekį dirvožemyje ir visą augalo vegetacijos laikotarpį išlaikyti optimalų dirvožemio drėgnumą. Ypatingai svarbu įvertinti drėkinimo sistemos reikalingumą ūkiui ar įrengta sistema padės padidinti derliaus apimtis. Taip pat aktualu įrengiant drėkinimo sistemas įvertinti ir sausinimo sistemos būklę. Išanalizavus esamą situaciją galima teigti, kad drėkinimo sistemos yra labai svarbios tam tikrų veiklos sričių ūkiams, ypatingai daržininkystei. Šiose veiklose galima žymiai padidinti derliaus apimtis, kokybę, prekinę išvaizdą. / The aim of thesis is to analyze farmers’ farms of Kaunas region, the condition of farms’ drainage and irrigation systems, their dependence on the farms’ work. The questioning data of farmers has been used for the analyse. The most relevant problem is to ascertain the demand of irrigation systems for agriculture of Kaunas region. In order to increase extents of harvest it is important to maintain optimal soil moisture regime during all period of plants’ vegetation. It is particularly essential to evaluate the need of irrigation system to a farm or if equipped systems will help to increase extents of harvest. As well as it is relevant while equipping irrigation systems to evaluate conditions of drainage system. According to the accomplished research about analyzed situation, it might be proposed that irrigation systems are very essential to certain work field farms, especially to vegetable-growing, seed-growing. Extent, quality and marketable looks of harvest might be considerably increased in these activities.

A risk analysis of drought and an assessment of irrigation requirements were ascertained for a wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) crop in Parana, Brazil, using 28 years of historical weather data. Two soil moisture models, The Versatile Soil Moisture Budget (VB4) and SWACROP models, were compared using data from six wheat cropping periods. The models showed good performance in predicting soil moisture contents, but SWACROP underpredicted soil evaporation and runoff, and VB4 did not separate evapotranspiration into its components. Therefore, a new soil moisture model was proposed. In the new model, a Darcy type equation was used to calculate fluxes in the soil profile, and inputs of daily rainfall and potential evapotranspiration were partitioned during the day using simple disaggregation methods. Crop growth input parameters, interacting with weather and soil inputs, were used to calculate a detailed output of the water balance components. The validation of the model showed predictions of soil water contents and evapotranspiration in close agreement with field data. / A crop yield model based on the stress day index approach was selected from an evaluation of seven crop-water production functions using wheat field data. This model was combined with the soil moisture model to assess risks of drought during the establishment and development of non-irrigated wheat crops with different planting dates. Irrigation management strategies were simulated to identify net system delivery capacities and application frequencies that promote maximum yield with minimum requirements of water. Yield reductions in non-irrigated wheat due to water stress varied between 16%, for early plantings, to 50%, for late plantings. Maximum yields with minimum applied water was obtained by the use of low intensity (5 to 10 mm) and frequent (3 to 5 days) irrigations. System delivery capacity requirements varied from 1.5 to 3.0 mm/day, according to planting dates.

Site classification in the biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification system is based on three differentiating properties: climatic regimes (expressed by biogeoclimatic subzones or variants), soil moisture regimes (SMRs), and soil nutrient regimes (SNRs). A SNR represents a segment of a regional soil nutrient gradient, i.e., soils which provide similar levels of plant-available nutrients over a long period. SNRs are identified in the field using a number of easily observable soil morphological properties and indicator plant species. However, we need to know to what extent soil nutrient properties support these indirect field-estimates. There have been several studies that quantitatively characterize regional soil nutrient gradients in different climatic regions, but no study has yet been done in the subalpine coastal forest (Mountain Hemlock zone). Influenced by a maritime subalpine boreal climate, high-elevation coastal soils differ from low-elevation soils by having a thicker forest floor and a higher organic matter content. In the study summarized here, relationships between soil chemical properties and field-estimated SNRs are examined and soil chemical properties and field-identified SNRs are related to the site index of Pacific silver fir (Abies amabilis (Dougl. ex Loud.) Forbes) - one of the major timber crop species in the Coastal Western Hemlock and Mountain Hemlock zones.