Soil Moisture Redistribution as Affected by Throughfall and Stemflow in an Arid Zone Shrub Community

Abstract

Changes in soil moisture under various densities of mulga (Acacia aneura F. Muell.) were followed from December 1971 to October 1973. Stemflow was instrumental in storing water at depth in the soil, being particularly noticeable with medium falls of rain (~ 75 mm); heavy (~ 160 mm) falls tended to mask the effect. Throughfall increased linearly with aggregate rainfall, and percentage throughfall decreased with increasing tree density. Of incoming precipitation, 94% was partitioned as throughfall under a tree density of 40 trees/ha-1 compared with 86% at a density of 4000 trees/ha. No distinct soil moisture patterns due to throughfall were found. Infiltration rates of water into the soil decreased with increasing distance from trees, being 46, 22 and 17 mm/h-1 after 10 min at distances 0.25, 0.5 and 2 m from a tree bole respectively, thus demonstrating that stemflow waters are absorbed at close proximity to the tree bole.The results are discussed in terms of the ecological importance of stem flow and soil moisture patterning to the survival and growth of mulga and associated ground flora.

Review of the ecohydrological processes and feedback mechanisms controlling sand-binding vegetation systems in sandy desert regions of China

“…Annual plants were the opportunists in the sand-binding dunes. They only germinated during the rainy season and quickly completed their life cycles [14,27,100,101].…”

“…The interception losses by A. ordosica and C. korshinskii accounted for 15% and 27% of the precipitation on a crown area basis and 6% and 11% of the precipitation on a ground area basis [12,13]. The interception losses were less than those in the Chihuahua and Negev deserts, where the interception loss accounted for 10%-60% of the rainfall [14][15][16][17][18], mainly due to the sparse shrub canopy structure and lower leaf area index. Therefore, with regards to rainfall interception, species with relatively sparse stems and branches should be selected as potential sand-binding species [12,13].…”

Inverse estimation of soil hydraulic properties under oil palm trees

“…Previous studies have shown that stemflow can be a major source of tree-induced infiltration and subsequent flow in and below the soil root zone, including recharge (Aboal et al, 1999;Gomez et al, 2002;Liang et al, 2007Liang et al, , 2011Pressland, 1976;Sansoulet et al, 2008;Tanaka et al, 1996). Liang et al (2007) observed that cumulative stemflow per unit infiltration area along the downslope side of a tree trunk was nearly 20 times cumulative open-area rainfall.…”

Desert shrub stemflow and its significance in soil moisture replenishment

“…Návar and Bryan (1990) calculated that stemflow input to the soil area around three semiarid shrub stems in northeastern Mexico represented a water input that was five times higher than by other areas below the shrub canopies. Other arid shrubs are also adapted to divert rainfall to the base of their stems as stemflow where it subsequently infiltrates the soil and remains available for plant uptake at deeper soil layers (Pressland, 1976;Nulsen et al, 1986;Návar, 1993;Martinez-Meza and Whitford, 1996;Li et al, 2008). Levia and Frost (2003) provided a thorough review of the quantitative and qualitative importance of stemflow in forests as well as in agricultural environments.…”