2019/05/23 by Yonggen Zhang, Marcel G. Schaap, Zhongwang Wei · 34 citations
Engineering · Environmental Science · Mathematics · #Data assimilation #Ensemble average #Ensemble forecasting #Hydraulic conductivity #Hydrological modelling #Hydrology (agriculture) #Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies #Pedotransfer function #Soil Moisture and Remote Sensing #Soil and Unsaturated Flow #Soil water #Water content #stat.AP #stat.ME
paper · pdf · doi:10.1029/2020gl088819
published in Geophysical Research Letters 47(15) (American Geophysical Union)
arxiv created 2019/05/23 · openalex created_date 2019/06/14 · openalex publication_date 2020/07/17 · arxiv updated 2020/09/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract Correct quantification of mass and energy exchange processes between land surface and atmosphere requires an accurate description of unsaturated soil hydraulic properties. Soil pedotransfer functions (PTFs) have been widely used to predict soil hydraulic parameters. Here, 13 PTFs were grouped according to input data requirements and evaluated against a well‐documented database (National Cooperative Soil Survey Characterization [NCSS]) covering the continental United States (87.7% of data) and other regions of the globe (12.3% of data). Weighted ensembles were shown to have improved performance over individual PTFs in terms of evaluation criteria. Validation of moisture content estimated from the ensemble models against observations showed promising results. Global maps of soil water retention data from the ensemble models as well as their uncertainty were provided. Our full 13‐member ensemble model provides more accurate estimates than PTFs that are currently being used in Earth system models, which may, therefore, provide improved water fluxes and reduce uncertainty of the estimations.