Modeling of Two Different Water Uptake Approaches for Mono- and Mixed-Species Forest Stands
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Telegrafenberg A 62, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
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Academic Editor: Steven Jansen
Forests 2015, 6(6), 2125-2147; https://doi.org/10.3390/f6062125
Received: 27 March 2015 / Accepted: 3 June 2015 / Published: 12 June 2015
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Responses of Forest Trees to Drought)
To assess how the effects of drought could be better captured in process-based models, this study simulated and contrasted two water uptake approaches in Scots pine and Scots pine-Sessile oak stands. The first approach consisted of an empirical function for root water uptake (WU1). The second approach was based on differences of soil water potential along a soil-plant-atmosphere continuum (WU2) with total root resistance varying at low, medium and high total root resistance levels. Three data sets on different time scales relevant for tree growth were used for model evaluation: Two short-term datasets on daily transpiration and soil water content as well as a long-term dataset on annual tree ring increments. Except WU2 with high total root resistance, all transpiration outputs exceeded observed values. The strongest correlation between simulated and observed annual tree ring width occurred with WU2 and high total root resistance. The findings highlighted the importance of severe drought as a main reason for small diameter increment. However, if all three data sets were taken into account, no approach was superior to the other. We conclude that accurate projections of future forest productivity depend largely on the realistic representation of root water uptake in forest model simulations.
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Keywords:
4C; drought; forest modeling; root water uptake; climate change; model validation
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MDPI and ACS Style
Gutsch, M.; Lasch-Born, P.; Suckow, F.; Reyer, C.P.O. Modeling of Two Different Water Uptake Approaches for Mono- and Mixed-Species Forest Stands. Forests 2015, 6, 2125-2147. https://doi.org/10.3390/f6062125
AMA Style
Gutsch M, Lasch-Born P, Suckow F, Reyer CPO. Modeling of Two Different Water Uptake Approaches for Mono- and Mixed-Species Forest Stands. Forests. 2015; 6(6):2125-2147. https://doi.org/10.3390/f6062125
Chicago/Turabian StyleGutsch, Martin; Lasch-Born, Petra; Suckow, Felicitas; Reyer, Christopher P.O. 2015. "Modeling of Two Different Water Uptake Approaches for Mono- and Mixed-Species Forest Stands" Forests 6, no. 6: 2125-2147. https://doi.org/10.3390/f6062125
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