Analyzing the Regional Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Interaction Using Both the Eagleson and Budyko's Water Balance Models

From the water balance analysis using Eagleson's ecohydrological model in the non-humid regions of China, the allocation of evpotranspiration flux among canopy transpiration, surface interception, and bare soil evaporation is analyzed and the quantitative relationship between the vegetation and soil moisture is derived. It implies that change of vegetation coverage due to climate variation and human activity can be potentially predicted through the soil moisture change. Combination of the Budyko's water-energy balance model and the Eagleson's ecohydrological model is used for predicting the impact of climate and vegetation changes on the catchment water balance, which shows that the combined model has the capacity of capturing the regional soil-vegetation-atmosphere interaction, and is useful for assessing the long-term effect of vegetation changes on catchment hydrology, and hence it has implications to the water resources management in the non-humid regions of China.