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- Title
Vegetation dynamics and soil water balance in a water-limited Mediterranean ecosystem on Sardinia, Italy.
- Authors
Montaldo, N.; Albertson, J. D.; Mancini, M.
- Abstract
Mediterranean ecosystems are commonly heterogeneous savanna-like ecosystems, with contrasting plant functional types (PFTs, e.g., grass and woody vegetation) competing for the water use. Mediterranean ecosystems are also commonly characterized by strong inter-annual rainfall variability, which influences the distributions of PFTs that vary spatially and temporally. With the objective to investigate interactions between vegetation dynamics, soil water budget and land-surface fluxes in a water-limited ecosystem, an extensive field campaign in a Mediterranean setting was performed. Also a vegetation dynamic model (VDM) is coupled to a 3-component (bare soil, grass and woody vegetation) Land surface model (LSM). The case study is in Orroli, situated in the mid-west of Sardegna within the Flumendosa river basin. The landscape is a mixture of Mediterranean patchy vegetation types: trees, including wild olives and cork oaks, different shrubs and herbaceous species. Land surface fluxes, soil moisture and vegetation growth were monitored during the May 2003-June 2006 period. Interestingly, hydrometeorological conditions of the monitored years strongly differ, with dry and wet years in turn, such that a wide range of hydrometeorological conditions can be analyzed. The coupled VDM-LSM model is successfully tested for the case study, demonstrating high model performance for the wide range of eco-hydrologic conditions. The use of the VDM in the LSM is demonstrated to be essential when studying the climate-soil-vegetation interactions of these water-limited ecosystems. Results demonstrate also that vegetation dynamics are strongly influenced by the inter-annual variability of atmospheric forcing, with grass leaf area index changing significantly each spring season according to seasonal rainfall amount.
- Subjects
ECOSYSTEM management; VEGETATION dynamics; PLANT diversity; SOIL moisture conservation; HYDROMETEOROLOGY; RAINFALL simulators; CLIMATOLOGY observations; EARTH science education; SCIENTIFIC method
- Publication
Hydrology & Earth System Sciences Discussions, 2008, Vol 5, Issue 1, p219
- ISSN
1812-2108
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.5194/hessd-5-219-2008