New consistent models for an effective description of root water uptake

• Applicant: Dr. Andre Peters
• Subject Area: Soil Sciences
• Term: from 2014 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 269561279

A precise knowledge of water transport in the soil-plant-atmosphere system is significant for many fields in ecological and agricultural sciences. The water transport is coupled with solute as well as to energy transport phenomena. Thus, erroneous predictions in water transport lead to erroneous predictions of the fate of water, solutes and energy in the system components. A large portion of the soil water is transported via plants to the atmosphere. Therefore, a sound description of root water uptake is of crucial importance. Usually, such transport processes are described effectively, assuming a representative elementary volume (REV). This proposal shows that the typical models for an effective description of root water uptake on the REV-scale are physically inconsistent. Improvements are suggested which lead to physical consistency on the one hand and to practicability on the other hand. Practicability means here that the required information for parameterization of the models is small and that the models can be relatively easily implemented into existing simulation software. This shall be done in the project in order to analyze the new and the old models in a sensitivity study under different boundary conditions and for different soil types with homogeneous and heterogeneous distribution of the soil properties. In the last step the new models shall be tested with literature data.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants