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ARS Home » Plains Area » Bushland, Texas » Conservation and Production Research Laboratory » Soil and Water Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #262667
Title: Energy, water balances, and fluxes in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum: Dryland and desert cases

Author
item Evett, Steven - Steve
item JITAN, MOHAMMED - National Center For Agricultural Research And Extension (NCARTT)
item MAZAHREH, T - National Center For Agricultural Research And Extension (NCARTT)

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/4/2010
Publication Date: 11/8/2010
Citation: Evett, S.R., Jitan, M.A., Mazahreh, T.H. 2010. Energy, water balances, and fluxes in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum: Dryland and desert cases. [abstract] International conference Sede Boger, Israel, Nov. 8-11, 2011.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Desert environments offer daunting challenges for sustainable agriculture, low precipitation and temperature extremes among them. Yet, desert environments are not all alike, and some deserts are, with the exception of low precipitation, less challenging than some semi-arid regions that routinely support dryland agriculture. Low altitude deserts, particularly those close to the sea, may experience smaller solar irradiance than higher altitude semi-arid environments. Humidity in some deserts is surprisingly high. Temperature and wind speed extremes can be wide, but not always greater than those in semi-arid agricultural regions. Examples of energy and water balances of desert and semi-arid regions will be drawn from weighing lysimeter work in the Jordan Valley, Jordan; Ismailia, Egypt; and at Bushland, Texas, located in the semi-arid Southern Great Plains of the United States. Both measured and estimated evapotranspiration rates and their dependence on weather variables affecting the components of the energy and water balances will be presented. Also, weighing lysimeter measurements of ET will be compared with eddy covariance estimates of ET, both made in the Jordan Valley on sweet corn and tomato crops, in order to compare the efficacy of these two methods in environments dominated by small, often isolated, agricultural fields.