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Published in: Environmental Earth Sciences 3/2011

01-06-2011 | Original Article

Spatial variability of soil moisture at typical alpine meadow and steppe sites in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau permafrost region

Authors: Zhaoping Yang, Hua Ouyang, Xianzhou Zhang, Xingliang Xu, Caiping Zhou, Wenbin Yang

Published in: Environmental Earth Sciences | Issue 3/2011

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Abstract

Permafrost degradation has the potential to significantly change soil moisture. The objective of this study was to assess the variability of soil moisture in a permafrost region using geostatistical techniques. The experiment was conducted in August 2008 in alpine steppe and meadow located in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau permafrost region. Four soil depths (0–10, 10–20, 20–30 and 30–40 cm) were analyzed using frequency domain reflectometry, and sampling made of 80 points in a 10 m × 10 m grid were sampled. Soil moisture was analyzed using classical statistics to appropriately describe central tendency and dispersion, and then using geostatistics to describe spatial variability. Classical statistical method indicated that soil moisture in the permafrost region had a normal distribution pattern. Mean surface soil moisture in alpine meadow was higher than that in alpine steppe. The semivariograms showed that soil moisture variability in alpine cold steppe was larger than that in alpine meadow, which decreased with depths. Nugget values in alpine steppe were low (0.1–4.5), in contrast to alpine cold meadow. Soil moisture in alpine steppe had highly structured spatial variability with more than 93.4% spatial heterogeneity, and the range decreased with depth. Soil moisture content in alpine cold meadow had a moderate spatial dependence with a range of 51.3–169.2 m, increasing with depth.

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Metadata
Title
Spatial variability of soil moisture at typical alpine meadow and steppe sites in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau permafrost region
Authors
Zhaoping Yang
Hua Ouyang
Xianzhou Zhang
Xingliang Xu
Caiping Zhou
Wenbin Yang
Publication date
01-06-2011
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Published in
Environmental Earth Sciences / Issue 3/2011
Print ISSN: 1866-6280
Electronic ISSN: 1866-6299
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-010-0716-y

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