Abstract:
Accurate and rapid measurement of soil evaporation
in-situ is of great significance for studying soil evaporation and water balance in the arid and semi-arid regions. The evaporation
in-situ on the Aeolian soil and the Loessial soil was measured by using the cutting ring method. And then the results obtained by the cutting ring method and the traditional micro-evaporator method were compared. The average daily evaporation rate at the surface layer (0 - 5 cm) by using the cutting ring method was 81.68% and 60.71% of that by using the micro-evaporator method on the Aeolian soil and Loessal soil, respectively. There was an extremely significant correlation between the accumulative soil evaporation at four layers (0 - 20 cm) by using the cutting ring method and the results by using the micro-evaporator method on the Aeolian soil (
P < 0.01,
R2 = 0.52), and the RMSE was 0.84. In the case of continuous non-precipitation events, the results were approximate between the two methods. There was an extremely significant correlation between the determination results by using the cutting ring method (0 - 20 cm) and by using the micro-evaporator method (
P < 0.01,
R2 = 0.59) on the Loessial soil, and the RMSE was 1.07. The measurement results by using the two methods were significantly different under no continuous precipitation event, while they were consistent after the occurrence of an event with a low rainfall intensity. Although the cutting-ring method can be used to accurately and rapidly measure soil evaporation
in-situ, precipitation events would have a significant impact on the cutting-ring method.