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Simulated Water Budgets for an Annual Grassland Site in the Sierra Foothills

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Part of the book series: Tasks for vegetation science ((TAVS,volume 20))

Abstract

In California’s annual grassland and oak woodland, rainfall is high during winter but almost nonexistent during the hot summers (Major 1977). As a consequence, the season with warm temperatures and the season of high precipitation are out of phase for plant growth. In addition, the length of the period of moisture availability varies, as does the total amount of precipitation (Evans et al. 1975, Major 1977). In this paper, a water-budget model was used to evaluate the effect of these factors on water utilization by plants in relation to streamflow. The objective of this study was to determine for an oak grassland ecosystem (1) the importance of different fates of water (transpiration, evaporation, streamflow), (2) changes in the water budget from year to year, and (3) the impact of oak removal and depth of the soil hardpan on the water budget.

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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht

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Parton, W.J., Jackson, L. (1989). Simulated Water Budgets for an Annual Grassland Site in the Sierra Foothills. In: Huenneke, L.F., Mooney, H.A. (eds) Grassland structure and function. Tasks for vegetation science, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3113-8_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3113-8_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7900-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-3113-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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