Infiltration from the Pedon to Global Grid Scales: an Overview and Outlook for Land Surface Modeling
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Published June 24, 2019 Reviews and Analyses Core Ideas Infiltration from the Pedon to Global • Land surface models (LSMs) show Grid Scales: An Overview and Outlook a large variety in describing and upscaling infiltration. for Land Surface Modeling • Soil structural effects on infiltration in LSMs are mostly neglected. Harry Vereecken, Lutz Weihermüller, Shmuel Assouline, • New soil databases may help to Jirka Šimůnek, Anne Verhoef, Michael Herbst, Nicole Archer, parameterize infiltration processes Binayak Mohanty, Carsten Montzka, Jan Vanderborght, in LSMs. Gianpaolo Balsamo, Michel Bechtold, Aaron Boone, Sarah Chadburn, Matthias Cuntz, Bertrand Decharme, Received 22 Oct. 2018. Agnès Ducharne, Michael Ek, Sebastien Garrigues, Accepted 16 Feb. 2019. Klaus Goergen, Joachim Ingwersen, Stefan Kollet, David M. Lawrence, Qian Li, Dani Or, Sean Swenson, Citation: Vereecken, H., L. Weihermüller, S. Philipp de Vrese, Robert Walko, Yihua Wu, Assouline, J. Šimůnek, A. Verhoef, M. Herbst, N. Archer, B. Mohanty, C. Montzka, J. Vander- and Yongkang Xue borght, G. Balsamo, M. Bechtold, A. Boone, S. Chadburn, M. Cuntz, B. Decharme, A. Infiltration in soils is a key process that partitions precipitation at the land sur- Ducharne, M. Ek, S. Garrigues, K. Goergen, J. face into surface runoff and water that enters the soil profile. We reviewed the Ingwersen, S. Kollet, D.M. Lawrence, Q. Li, D. basic principles of water infiltration in soils and we analyzed approaches com- Or, S. Swenson, P. de Vrese, R. Walko, Y. Wu, and Y. Xue. 2019. Infiltration from the pedon monly used in land surface models (LSMs) to quantify infiltration as well as its to global grid scales: An overview and out- numerical implementation and sensitivity to model parameters. We reviewed look for land surface modeling. Vadose Zone methods to upscale infiltration from the point to the field, hillslope, and grid cell J. 18:180191. doi:10.2136/vzj2018.10.0191 scales of LSMs. Despite the progress that has been made, upscaling of local-scale infiltration processes to the grid scale used in LSMs is still far from being treated rigorously. We still lack a consistent theoretical framework to predict effective Affiliations: H. Vereecken, L. Weihermüller, M. Herbst, C. Montzka, J. Vanderborght, K. fluxes and parameters that control infiltration in LSMs. Our analysis shows that Goergen, and S. Kollet, Agrosphere Institute there is a large variety of approaches used to estimate soil hydraulic properties. IBG-3, Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Novel, highly resolved soil information at higher resolutions than the grid scale of 52425 Jülich, Germany; H. Vereecken, Inter- national Soil Modeling Consortium (ISMC), LSMs may help in better quantifying subgrid variability of key infiltration param- Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, 52425 eters. Currently, only a few LSMs consider the impact of soil structure on soil Jülich, Germany; S. Assouline, Dep. of Envi- hydraulic properties. Finally, we identified several processes not yet considered ronmental Physics and Irrigation, Institute of Soils, Water and Environment Sciences, A.R.O. in LSMs that are known to strongly influence infiltration. Especially, the impact Volcani Center, Bet Dagan, Israel; J. Šimůnek, of soil structure on infiltration requires further research. To tackle these chal- Dep. of Environmental Sciences, Univ. of Cali- lenges and integrate current knowledge on soil processes affecting infiltration fornia, Riverside, CA 92521; A. Verhoef, Dep. of Geography and Environmental Science, processes into LSMs, we advocate a stronger exchange and scientific interaction Univ. of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AB, UK; N. between the soil and the land surface modeling communities. Archer, British Geological Survey, The Lyell Centre, Edinburgh, EH14 4AP, Scotland; B. Abbreviations: BC, boundary condition; CLM, common land model; FTC, freeze–thaw cycle; GCM, global Mohanty, Dep. of Biological and Agricultural climate model; LSM, land surface model; pdf, probability density function; PDM, probability-distributed Engineering, Texas A&M Univ., College Sta- model; PTF, pedotransfer function; SWR, soil water repellency. tion, TX 77843; G. Balsamo, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Rea- ding, RG2 9AX, UK; M. Bechtold, Dep. of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Dep. of Infiltration or water entry into the soil profile is a key process in the hydrological cycle. Computer Science, KU Leuven, 3001 Hever- lee, Belgium; A. Boone and B. Decharme, Its rate and dynamics affect the partitioning of precipitation at the land surface and deter- CNRM, UMR3589 (Météo-France, CNRS), Tou- mines the onset of ponding and, consequently, the formation of overland flow and runoff. louse, France; S. Chadburn, School of Earth Infiltration affects irrigation efficiency on managed lands and the resulting stored soil and Environment, Univ. of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK; S. Chadburn, Univ. of Exeter, water available to vegetation (e.g., Verhoef and Egea-Cegarra, 2013), overland flow and soil Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK; M. Cuntz, Univ. de Lor- erosion processes (e.g., Assouline and Ben-Hur, 2006; Garrote and Bras, 1995; Poesen et al., raine, INRA, AgroParisTech, UMR Silva, 54000 Nancy, France; A. Ducharne, Sorbonne Univ., 2003), groundwater recharge (e.g., Dahan et al., 2008), the exchange of water and energy CNRS, EPHE, UMR 7619 METIS, Paris, France; between the soil and atmosphere by controlling soil water content at the surface (Kim et al., (continued on next page) 2017; MacDonald et al., 2017), and with this the flux partitioning into latent and sensible heat flux with multiple atmospheric feedbacks (e.g., Keune et al., 2016; Seneviratne et al., © 2019 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND license 2010), stream flow and flooding events (Garrote and Bras, 1995), and various soil physi- (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0/). cal processes such as the onset of landslides (Lehmann and Or, 2012) and soil mechanical Vadose Zone Journal | Advancing Critical Zone Science stress–strain behavior. The spatial distribution of infiltration rates is affected by soil type, M. Ek, Environmental Modeling Center, Natio- local topography, and attributes of surface cover. Infiltration feedbacks have been shown to nal Centers for Environmental Prediction, College Park, MD 20740; S. Garrigues, French drive the formation of vegetation patterns. Infiltration rates are crucial inputs to the design National Institute for Agricultural Research of any irrigation system and many soil and water conservation practices. The significance (INRA) CESBIO, Toulouse, France, and Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, CEH, Wallingford, of infiltration has made it a subject of studies in many domains ranging from hydrology UK; K. Goergen, Centre for High-Performance to agricultural, environmental, and civil engineering. Scientific Computing in Terrestrial Systems, Geoverbund ABC/J, 52425 Jülich, Germany; J. Even at the single profile scale, infiltration exhibits strong dynamics that are depen- Ingwersen, Institute of Soil Science and Land dent on soil properties, rainfall characteristics, wetting rates, vegetation cover and type, soil Evaluation, Biogeophysics, Univ. Hohenheim, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany; D.M. Lawrence, and crop management, and initial and boundary conditions within the soil flow domain. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Based on the definition of Hillel (1980) and Brutsaert (2005), infiltration is defined as Boulder, CO 80305; Q. Li, Center for Monsoon “the entry of water into the soil surface and its subsequent movement through the soil Research, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, profile.” The sources of liquid water for infiltration include direct precipitation (rainfall, China; D. Or, ETH Zurich, Institut für Biogeo- dewfall, and snowmelt), leaf drip and stem flow, irrigation, or runoff that was routed over chemie und Schadstoffdynamik, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland; S. Swenson, Climate and Global the land surface and reinfiltrates (a process termed run-on). A detailed understanding of Dynamics Lab., Terrestrial Sciences, NCAR, the primary controls on infiltration rates and the onset of ponding with subsequent runoff, Boulder, CO 80307; P. de Vrese, Max-Planck Institut for Meteorology, Land in the Earth and their translation into model equations, is of great importance at all scales. The accu- System, 20146 Hamburg, Germany; R. Walko, rate process representation of infiltration is also essential for crop water use studies, the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Univ. of Miami, Miami, FL 33149; Y. design of irrigation systems, and the optimal management of water resources. Different Wu, Environmental Modeling Center, Natio- approaches have thus been developed over the past decades to provide quantitative tools nal Centers for Environmental Prediction and able to describe and predict infiltration into porous media such as soils, ranging from I.M. System Group at NCEP, College Park, MD 20740; Y. Xue, Dep. of Atmospheric and Ocea- empirical expressions to analytical and numerical solutions of the basic flow equations. nic Sciences and Dep. of Geography, Univ. of Infiltration dynamics are determined by soil properties (hydraulic conductivity, sorp- California, Los Angeles, CA 90095. *Corres- ponding author ([email protected]). tivity), the hydraulic gradients that drive flow, and initial and boundary conditions (Philip, 1957). Depending on the initial soil water content