Connections between groundwater flow and transpiration partitioning

Abstract

Groundwater flow drives partitioning Soil evaporation and plant transpiration together contribute a substantial proportion of terrestrial freshwater fluxes. Land surface models are used to understand the partitioning of these fluxes on a continental scale; however, model outputs are often inconsistent with stable isotope observations. Maxwell and Condon incorporated dynamic groundwater flow into an integrated hydrologic model simulation for the entire United States. The model showed that water table depth and lateral flow strongly affect transpiration partitioning, thus explaining the inconsistencies between observations and models. Science , this issue p. 377