[en] Evapotranspiration (ET) controls the flux between the land surface and the atmosphere. Assessing the ET ecosystems remains a key challenge in hydrology. We have found that the ET water mass loss can be directly inferred from continuous gravity measurements: as water evaporates and transpires from terrestrial ecosystems, the mass distribution of water decreases, changing the gravity field. Using continuous superconducting gravity measurements, we were able to identify daily gravity changes at the level of, or smaller than, 10-9 nms-2 (or 10-10 g) per day. This corresponds to 1.7mmof water over an area of 50 ha. The strength of this method is its ability to enable a direct, traceable and continuous monitoring of actual ET for years at the mesoscale with a high accuracy.
Research center :
Aquapôle - ULiège
Disciplines :
Geological, petroleum & mining engineering
Author, co-author :
Van Camp, Michel; Royal Observatory of Belgium, Uccle, Belgium > Seismology-Gravimetry
de Viron, Olivier; Université de La Rochelle and CNRS (UMR7266) > Littoral, Environnement et Sociétés
Pajot-Métivier, Gwendoline; Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité > IGN LAREG
Casenave, Fabien; Université Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité > IGN LAREG
Watlet, Arnaud; Université de Mons-Hainaut - UMH > Faculty of Engineering > Geology and Applied Geology Unit
Dassargues, Alain ; Université de Liège > Département ArGEnCo > Hydrogéologie & Géologie de l'environnement
Vanclooster, Marnik; Université Catholique de Louvain - UCL > Earth and Life Institute
Language :
English
Title :
Direct measurement of evapotranspiration from a forest using a superconducting gravimeter
Publication date :
13 September 2016
Journal title :
Geophysical Research Letters
ISSN :
0094-8276
eISSN :
1944-8007
Publisher :
American Geophysical Union, Washington, United States - District of Columbia
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