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Relation of Water Application to Evaporation and Storage of Soil Water¹

ABSTRACT

Evaporation was measured from columns of Rago loam and McGrew loamy sand, to which water had been added at several rates ranging from 0.25 cm/day to 10.2 cm every 20 days. The water lost by evaporation varied from 100% of the total applied for the smallest and most frequent addition to 31.2% for the 10.2 cm of water added to McGrew soil every 20 days.

The losses from repeated cycles of the individual treatments tended to approach a constant value that was less than the potential loss. As the amount added was increased for a given evaporation period, the loss tended to approach a constant value that also was much less than the potential loss.

The cumulative evaporation curves were scaled to dimensionless variables and compared with a theoretical solution of the diffusivity equation for finite media. Using this scaling-comparison technique, the losses from soil with two different potential evaporations were compared with predicted curves.

¹ Contribution from the Northern Plains and Southwest Branches, Soil and Water Conservation Research Division, Agricultural Research Service, USDA.

² Research Soil Scientist, USDA, Fort Collins, Colo.; and Research Physicist, USDA, Riverside, Calif., now Professor of Soil and Water Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Received for publication June 10, 1968. Accepted for publication October 10, 1968.