Abstract
The acceleration of urbanization requires sustainable, adaptive management strategies for land and water use in cities. Although the effects of buildings and sealed surfaces on urban runoff generation and local climate are well known, much less is known about the role of water partitioning in urban green spaces. In particular, little is quantitatively known about how different vegetation types of urban green spaces (lawns, parks, woodland, etc.) regulate partitioning of precipitation into evaporation, transpiration and groundwater recharge and how this partitioning is affected by sealed surfaces. Here, we integrated field observations with advanced, isotope-based ecohydrological modelling at a plot-scale site in Berlin, Germany. Soil moisture and sap flow, together with stable isotopes in precipitation, soil water and groundwater recharge, were measured over the course of one growing season under three generic types of urban green space: trees, shrub and grass. Additionally, an eddy flux tower at the site continuously collected hydroclimate data. These data have been used as input and for calibration of the process-based ecohydrological model EcH2O-iso. The model tracks stable isotope ratios and water ages in various stores (e.g. soils and groundwater) and fluxes (evaporation, transpiration and recharge). Green water fluxes in evapotranspiration increased in the order shrub (381±1mm)<grass(434±21mm)<trees(489±30gmm), mainly driven by higher interception and transpiration. Similarly, ages of stored water and fluxes were generally older under trees than shrub or grass. The model also showed how the interface between sealed surfaces and green space creates edge effects in the form of "infiltration hotspots". These can both enhance evapotranspiration and increase groundwater recharge. For example, in our model, transpiration from trees increased by ∼50g% when run-on from an adjacent sealed surface was present and led to groundwater recharge even during the growing season, which was not the case under trees without run-on. The results form an important basis for future upscaling studies by showing that vegetation management needs to be considered within sustainable water and land use planning in urban areas to build resilience in cities to climatic and other environmental change.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3635-3652 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 29 Jun 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Einstein Stiftung Berlin (grant no. EVF-2018-425), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant no. GRK 2032/2), the Bundesmin-isterium für Bildung und Forschung (grant no. 01LP1602) and the Leverhulme Trust (grant no. RPG-2018-375).
This open-access publication was funded by Technische Universität Berlin.
Acknowledgements. The authors wish to thank the Einstein Foundation for financing the MOSAIC project, in which this study was performed. Contributions from Chris Soulsby were also funded by the Leverhulme Trust’s ISOLAND project. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) funded instrumentation of the Urban Climate Observatory (UCO) Berlin under grant 01LP1602 within the framework of Research for Sustainable Development (FONA; https://www.fona.de, last access: 21 June 2021). We also acknowledge support by the German Research Foundation and the Open Access Publication Fund of TU Berlin. The majority of the simulations were performed on the High Performance Computing cluster of TU Berlin. We thank Christian Marx for regular input during the modelling process, Lukas Kleine for help with figures and Ralf Duda for indispensable help with technical issues throughout the modelling process.
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