Improved Water Consumption Estimates of Black Locust Plantations in China’s Loess Plateau

Schwärzel, Kai, Zhang, Lulu, Strecker, Andreas and Podlasly, Christian, (2018). Improved Water Consumption Estimates of Black Locust Plantations in China’s Loess Plateau. Forests, 9(4), 1-21

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  • Sub-type Journal article
    Author Schwärzel, Kai
    Zhang, Lulu
    Strecker, Andreas
    Podlasly, Christian
    Title Improved Water Consumption Estimates of Black Locust Plantations in China’s Loess Plateau
    Appearing in Forests
    Volume 9
    Issue No. 4
    Publication Date 2018-04-11
    Place of Publication Online
    Publisher Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)
    Start page 1
    End page 21
    Language eng
    Abstract Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) is a major tree species in China’s large-scale afforestation. Despite its significance, black locust is underrepresented in sap flow literature; moreover, the published water consumption data might be biased. We applied two field methods to estimate water consumption of black locust during the growing seasons in 2012 and 2013. The application of Granier’s original sap flow method produced a very low transpiration rate (0.08 mm d-1) while the soil water balance method yielded a much higher rate (1.4 mm d-1). A dye experiment to determine the active sapwood area showed that only the outermost annual ring is responsible for conducting water, which was not considered in many previous studies. Moreover, an in situ calibration experiment was conducted to improve the reliability of Granier’s method. Validation showed a good agreement in estimates of the transpiration rate between the different methods. It is known from many studies that black locust plantations contribute to the significant decline of discharge in the Yellow River basin. Our estimate of tree transpiration at stand scale confirms these results. This study provides a basis for and advances the argument for the development of more sustainable forest management strategies, which better balance forest-related ecosystem services such as soil conservation and water supply.
    UNBIS Thesaurus AFFORESTATION
    Keyword Ring-porous trees
    Heat dissipation probes
    In situ calibration
    Soil water balance
    Transpiration
    Dye tests
    Copyright Holder The Authors
    Copyright Year 2018
    Copyright type Creative commons
    DOI 10.3390/f9040201
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