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Field Experimental Design for a Watershed Observing System

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Observation and Measurement of Ecohydrological Processes

Part of the book series: Ecohydrology ((ECOH,volume 2))

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Abstract

A watershed, regarded as the ideal unit for practicing earth system science, possesses all of the complexities of the land surface system. Thus, building a watershed observing system and conducting a field experiment for the observation of the ecohydrological processes at watershed scale is the best way to understand the complexities of the land surface system. This chapter presents an overview on the designing and conducting of a field experiment and establishing a watershed observing system. Several key scientific problems are addressed: (1) why we need a watershed observing system, (2) what are the characteristics of a watershed observing system, and (3) how can we design and establish a watershed observing system. We believe that a watershed observing system is the prerequisite of the watershed science development and helping to improve the understanding of the ecohydrological processes. The watershed observing system possesses the multidiscipline and multiscale characteristics. It must be able to capture the spatiotemporal heterogeneity and to quantify the uncertainty of the key ecohydrological variables. Finally, by taking two sequential watershed-scale observation experiments as example, we furthermore illustrate how to design and establish a watershed observing system.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No. 91425303), and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Grant No. XDA20100104.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China

    Guodong Cheng & Yingchun Ge

  2. Institute of Urban Studies, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Guodong Cheng & Zhonghao Zhang

  3. Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing of Gansu Province, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China

    Chunfeng Ma

  4. Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xin Li

  5. CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xin Li

Authors
  1. Xin Li
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  2. Guodong Cheng
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  3. Chunfeng Ma
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  4. Yingchun Ge
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  5. Zhonghao Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xin Li .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences Chinese, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xin Li

  2. Agrosphere Institute (IBG-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Jülich, Germany

    Harry Vereecken

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Li, X., Cheng, G., Ma, C., Ge, Y., Zhang, Z. (2019). Field Experimental Design for a Watershed Observing System. In: Li, X., Vereecken, H. (eds) Observation and Measurement of Ecohydrological Processes. Ecohydrology, vol 2. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48297-1_15

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