Soil moisture and temperature are two important soil parameters that influence many vital agronomic, environmental, engineering processes within the soil. Due to the difficulties arising when measuring these parameters in the field as well as the cost of instrumentation, many models that yield accurate and timely estimation of these parameters on a large scale have been developed as reliable and efficient alternatives. The Versatile Soil Moisture Budget model can be used to stimulate the vertical, one dimensional, water balance in a soil profile. Originally the model was designed to use air temperature and precipitation data to simulate soil water content within the root zone of a cereal crop. It has since undergone modifications and the model can now output, potential evapo-transpiration, actual evapo-transpiration, and surface temperature. The temperature algorithm simulates temperature at the soil surface and has not been rigorously tested for cropping systems. In this study, a simple empirical equation that simulates soil temperature at depth of up to 90 cm was introduced into the model. The model was evaluated and the accuracy of predicted soil moisture and temperature under both perennial and annual cropping systems were tested using two years of data collected at the University of Manitoba Research Station at Carman using soil water and temperature probes. The model’s accuracy in simulating soil moisture was also tested. Observed R2 comparing modelled temperature with observed was greater than 0.90 at the soil surface but decreased to about 0.40 at soil depth greater than 30-45 cm layer. The model was shown to be better at estimating soil temperature than soil moisture. The accuracy of the model was also shown to decrease with depth. These results can be used to improve soil temperature modeling at depth as well as improve farm management planning, irrigation schedules, nutrient management, fertilizer application and drought monitoring. / October 2015
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MANITOBA/oai:mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca:1993/30680 |
| Date | 26 August 2015 |
| Creators | Akinseloyin, Taiwo |
| Contributors | Akinremi, Wole (Soil Science), Bullock, Paul (Soil Science) Stadynk, Tricia ( Civil Engineering) |
| Source Sets | University of Manitoba Canada |
| Detected Language | English |
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