TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of spatially-variable soil thickness and texture on simulated hydrologic conditions in a semiarid watershed in northwest Mexico
AU - Méndez-Barroso, Luis A.
AU - Vivoni, Enrique
AU - Mascaro, Giuseppe
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Soil depth and texture exert strong controls on the spatial distribution of water and energy fluxes and states in semiarid watersheds. As a result, realistic representations of the spatial soil characteristics within watersheds are important for the improvement of process-based distributed hydrologic modeling applications. In this study, we evaluated the effects of combinations of soil thickness and soil texture products with varying spatial distributions to assess their effects on the simulated hydrologic response in the semiarid Sierra Los Locos watershed in Sonora, Mexico. The main findings of the hydrological simulations show that soil texture exerted a strong control on evapotranspiration and soil moisture patterns, while soil thickness was directly related with the magnitude and range of the simulated values. Furthermore, soil texture patterns were an important factor controlling the spatial and temporal persistence of soil moisture which is highly evident during the transition from dry to wet conditions in the North American monsoon region. Once vegetation cover increases in the watershed in response to seasonal rainfall, the influence of soil texture decreases for determining the spatial distribution of the simulated hydrologic response and soil thickness becomes more important. Spatially-variable soil thickness tends to create soil depressions that store and transmit subsurface water, leading to large spatial variations in soil moisture, evapotranspiration and runoff generation. The results of this study highlight the sensitivity of estimated water fluxes and states with respect to the spatial distribution of soil depth and texture as obtained in a distributed hydrologic model representative of modern approaches. Finally, this research work offers insight into the importance of field studies and remote sensing approaches to better characterize these watershed properties.
AB - Soil depth and texture exert strong controls on the spatial distribution of water and energy fluxes and states in semiarid watersheds. As a result, realistic representations of the spatial soil characteristics within watersheds are important for the improvement of process-based distributed hydrologic modeling applications. In this study, we evaluated the effects of combinations of soil thickness and soil texture products with varying spatial distributions to assess their effects on the simulated hydrologic response in the semiarid Sierra Los Locos watershed in Sonora, Mexico. The main findings of the hydrological simulations show that soil texture exerted a strong control on evapotranspiration and soil moisture patterns, while soil thickness was directly related with the magnitude and range of the simulated values. Furthermore, soil texture patterns were an important factor controlling the spatial and temporal persistence of soil moisture which is highly evident during the transition from dry to wet conditions in the North American monsoon region. Once vegetation cover increases in the watershed in response to seasonal rainfall, the influence of soil texture decreases for determining the spatial distribution of the simulated hydrologic response and soil thickness becomes more important. Spatially-variable soil thickness tends to create soil depressions that store and transmit subsurface water, leading to large spatial variations in soil moisture, evapotranspiration and runoff generation. The results of this study highlight the sensitivity of estimated water fluxes and states with respect to the spatial distribution of soil depth and texture as obtained in a distributed hydrologic model representative of modern approaches. Finally, this research work offers insight into the importance of field studies and remote sensing approaches to better characterize these watershed properties.
KW - Arid and semiarid hydrology
KW - Distributed hydrologic modeling
KW - Mexico
KW - Sensitivity analysis
KW - Sierra Los Locos
KW - Soil depth
KW - Sonora
KW - Spatial patterns
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M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85009471254
SN - 1026-8774
VL - 33
SP - 365
EP - 377
JO - Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geologicas
JF - Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geologicas
IS - 3
ER -