Kumar, R. ， Shankar, V. ， Jat, M. K.
2014-02-01 JOURNAL OF IRRIGATION AND DRAINAGE ENGINEERING 2014 140(卷), 2(期), (null页)
Water movement in the soil-root system is an important component in modeling of the hydrological processes. A nonlinear root uptake model was developed and validated for a nonuniform crop root zone in a semiarid agro-climate. The developed model is based on a fully implicit finite difference scheme. Field experiments were conducted on a maize (Zea mays) crop for prediction of moisture uptake pattern. Model moisture uptake prediction efficiency was analyzed on the basis of experimental data collected from the field for nonuniform/multilayer vis-a-vis uniform crop root zone. Model predicted soil-moisture parameters, i.e.,moisture depletion, moisture status at various depths, and soil moisture profile in root zone, are in good agreement with experimental results. The simulated moisture prediction has good agreement with observed values in multilayer soil depth as compared to uniform soil depth. The results emphasized the utility of the water uptake model across different agro-climates and established its efficacy for nonuniform soils having variations in soil moisture properties along depth in predicting soil moisture in crop root zone.