• Characterizing the spatiotemporal variations of evapotranspiration and aridity index in mid-western China from 2001 to 2016

    分类: 地球科学 >> 地理学 提交时间: 2021-12-30 合作期刊: 《干旱区科学》

    摘要: Mid-western China is one of the most sensitive and fragile areas on the Earth. Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key part of hydrological cycle in these areas and is affected by both global climate change and human activities. The dynamic changes in ET and potential evapotranspiration (PET), which can reflect water consumption and demand, are still unclear, and there is a lack of predictive capacity on drought severity. In this study, we used global MODIS (moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer) terrestrial ET (MOD16) products, Morlet wavelet analysis, and simple linear regression to investigate the spatiotemporal variations of ET, PET, reference ET (ET0), and aridity index (AI) in mid-western pastoral regions of China (including Gansu Province, Qinghai Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and part of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) from 2001 to 2016. The results showed that the overall ET gradually increased from east to southwest in the study area. Actual ET showed an increasing trend, whereas PET tended to decrease from 2001 to 2016. The change in ET was affected by vegetation types. During the study period, the average annual ET0 and AI tended to decrease. At the monthly scale within a year, AI value decreased from January to July and then increased. The interannual variations of ET0 and AI showed periodicity with a main period of 14 a, and two other periodicities of 11 and 5 a. This study showed that in recent years, drought in these pastoral regions of mid-western China has been alleviated. Therefore, it is foreseeable that the demand for irrigation water for agricultural production in these regions will decrease.

  • Suppression of weeds and weed seeds in the soil by stubbles and no-tillage in an arid maize-winter wheat-common vetch rotation on the Loess Plateau of China

    分类: 地球科学 >> 地球科学史 提交时间: 2018-09-18 合作期刊: 《干旱区科学》

    摘要: Reduced tillage provides ecological and economic benefits to arable land on the Loess Plateau of China, where soil erosion has long been a serious problem and soil water availability is largely restricted. However, high abundances of weeds in reduced tillage systems cause significant yield losses. In this study, we explored the effects of no-tillage and stubble retention on the number and density of weeds and weed seeds in a 12-year maize-winter wheat-common vetch rotation on the Loess Plateau. Four treatments including conventional tillage, no-tillage, conventional tillage+stubble retention and no-tillage+stubble retention were designed and applied. We found that no-tillage increased the number of weed species and weed density in most of the crops, while stubble retention decreased weed density in maize and tended to suppress weeds in both no-tillage treatments (no-tillage and no-tillage+stubble retention). No-tillage led to an increase in the number of weed species in the weed seedbank and tended to increase seed density during the spring growth of winter wheat, but it decreased seed density during post-vetch fallow. Stubble retention tended to reduce seed density during the spring growth of winter wheat and post-vetch fallow. We concluded that no-tillage can promote weeds in the experimental crop rotation, while stubble retention suppresses weeds in untilled fields. The combined effects of stubble retention and no-tillage on weed suppression varied among the three crops. Based on these results, we recommend stubble retention in untilled legume-crop rotations on the Loess Plateau to improve the control of weeds.