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Profile photo of Ronny Berndtsson

Ronny Berndtsson

Professor, Dep Director, MECW Dep Scientific Coordinator

Profile photo of Ronny Berndtsson

Water balance change for a re-vegetated xerophyte shrub area

Author

  • XP Wang
  • Ronny Berndtsson
  • XR Li
  • ES Kang

Summary, in English

Water balances for a re-vegetated xerophyte shrub (Caragana korshinskii) area were compared to that of a bare surface area by using auto-weighing type lysimeters during the 1990-1995 growing seasons at the southeast Tengger Desert, Shapotou, China. The six-year experiment displayed how major daily water balance components might vary for a bare and a re-vegetated sand dune area. Evapotranspiration from the C korshinskii lysimeter represented a major part of the water balance. The average annual ET/P ratios varied between 69 and 142%. No seepage was observed for the vegetated lysimeter. For the bare lysimeter, on the other hand, 48 rum or 27% of observed rainfall per year occurred as seepage. These results suggest that re-vegetating large sandy areas with xerophytic shrubs could reduce soil water storage by transpiration. Also, the experimental results indicate that revegetating large sandy areas could significantly change groundwater recharge conditions. However, from a viewpoint of desert ecosystem reconstruction, it appears that natural rainfall can sustain xerophytic shrubs such as C. korshinskii which would reduce erosion loss of sand. However, re-vegetation has to be balanced with recharge/ groundwater needs of local populations.

Department/s

  • Division of Water Resources Engineering

Publishing year

2004

Language

English

Pages

283-295

Publication/Series

Hydrological Sciences Journal

Volume

49

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Water Engineering

Keywords

  • evapotranspiration
  • re-vegetated desert
  • water balance
  • semiarid area
  • xerophytic shrub
  • area

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0262-6667