Three approaches for determining the stable isotopic composition (δ13C and δ18O) of soil CO2 efflux were compared. A new technique employed mini-towers, constructed of open-topped piping, that were placed on the soil surface to collect soil-emitted CO2. Samples were collected along a vertical gradient and analyzed for CO2 concentration and isotopic composition. These data were then used to prod...

Understanding the interaction between soil, vegetation and atmosphere processes and groundwater dynamics is of paramount importance in water resources planning and management in many practical applications. Hydrological models of complex water resources systems need to include a number of components and should therefore seek a balance between capturing all relevant processes and maintaining dat...

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the water balance in a semi-arid environment with limited in situ data using a remote sensing approach. We focus on the Lake Manyara catchment, located within the East African Rift of northern Tanzania. We use a distributed conceptual hydrological model driven by remote sensing data to study the spatial and temporal variability of water balance parameter...

The application of remotely sensed estimates of canopy minus air temperature (Tc-Ta) for detecting crop water stress can be limited in semi-arid regions, because of the lack of full ground cover (GC) at water-critical crop stages. Thus, soil background may restrict water stress interpretation by thermal remote sensing. For partial GC, the combination of plant canopy temperature and surrounding ...

Using data from a water-balance instrument cluster with spatially distributed sensors we determined the magnitude and within-catchment variability of components of the catchmentscale water balance, focusing on the relationship of seasonal evapotranspiration to changes in snowpack and soil moisture storage. Co-located, continuous snow depth and soil moisture measurements were deployed in a rain–...

Reclaimed water provides an important contribution to the water balance in water-scarce Jordan, but the quality of this water presents both benefits and challenges. Careful management of reclaimed water is required to maximize the nutrient benefits while minimizing the salinity risks. This work uses a multi-disciplinary research approach to show that soil response to irrigation with reclaimed w...

The estimation of spatially distributed crop water use or evapotranspiration (ET) can be achieved using the energy balance for land surface algorithm and multispectral imagery obtained from remote sensing sensors mounted on airor space-borne platforms. In the energy balance model, net radiation (Rn) is well estimated using remote sensing; however, the estimation of soil heat flux (G) has had mi...

Aims Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key component of water balance and is closely linked to ecosystem productivity. In arid regions, large proportion of precipitation (PPT) is returned to the atmosphere through ET, with only a small amount available to plants. Our objective was to examine the variability in ET–soil water relationship based on a set of ecosystems that are representative for semi-a...

In boreal forests, fire is an important part of the ecosystem that greatly influences soil respiration, which in turn affects the carbon balance. Wildfire can have a significant effect on soil respiration and it depends on the fire severity and environmental factors (soil temperature and snow water equivalent) after fire disturbance. In this study, we quantified post-fire soil respiration durin...

The proper assessment of evapotranspiration and soil moisture content arefundamental in food security research, land management, pollution detection, nutrient flows,(wild-) fire detection, (desert) locust, carbon balance as well as hydrological modelling; etc.This paper takes an extensive, though not exhaustive sample of international scientificliterature to discuss different approaches to esti...