[1] The effect of pre-storm land surface on the monsoon depressions (MDs) is studied. The Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model was configured with two nested domains to explore the sensitivity of MDs to antecedent soil moisture and land surface representation for selected three landfalling MDs during August 2006. Results indicate that WRF had good ability to simulate the MDs, and the post land...

In the South African sugar industry it is important that relatively inexpensive but viable drainage systems are de,:el,oped for those soils which have a low hydraulic conductrvity. From the results offield and laboratory investigations conducted during the past five years it appears that the use of unlined mole channels as an alternative for, or a supplement to conventional subsurface drainage,...

The flowering of grasses is a process critical to plant population dynamics and genetics, herbivore performance, and human health. To better understand the climate factors governing grass flowering, we analyzed the patterns of culm production over 25 years for three perennial tallgrass prairie species at Konza Prairie in Kansas, USA. The three species (Andropogon gerardii, Sorghastrum nutans, a...

Predicting runoff producing areas and their corresponding risks of generating storm runoff is important for developing watershed management strategies to mitigate non-point source pollution. However, few methods for making these predictions have been proposed, especially operational approaches that would be useful in areas where variable source area (VSA) hydrology dominates storm runoff. The o...

The effect of resource pulses, such as rainfall events, on soil respiration plays an important role in controlling grassland carbon balance, but how shifts in long-term precipitation regime regulate rain pulse effect on soil respiration is still unclear. We first quantified the influence of rainfall event on soil respiration based on a two-year (2006 and 2009) continuously measured soil respira...

The objective of this work was to explain an apparent contradiction in the literature related to the relationship between mean and variance (or standard deviation) of soil moisture fields. Some studies found an increase in soil moisture variance with decreasing mean soil moisture, while others showed a decrease. The evidence of maximum variance in the mid-range of mean soil moisture was also re...

Soil moisture is critical parameters in climatic and hydrological modeling and vegetation growth. Ground-based point measurement of soil moisture is liable but expensive and impractical for watershed measurement. Remote sensing measurement has provided thriving perspective for spatial and instantaneous measurement of soil moisture. Microwave measurement is effective and successful for surface s...