Spatiotemporal Distribution of Soil Thermal Conductivity in Chinese Loess Plateau

Yan Xu, Yibo Zhang, Wanghai Tao () and Mingjiang Deng
Additional contact information
Yan Xu: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Yibo Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Wanghai Tao: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Mingjiang Deng: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 12, 1-17

Abstract: The Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) is ecologically fragile, and water resources are extremely scarce. Soil thermal conductivity (λ) is a vital parameter for controlling surface heat transfer and is the key to studying the energy exchange and water balance of the soil surface. The objective of this study is to investigate the spatial distribution characteristics of soil thermal conductivity on the Loess Plateau. The research primarily employed soil heat transfer models and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform for remote sensing cloud computing, compares and analyzed the suitability of six models (Cambell model, Lu Yili model, Nikoosokhan model, LT model, LP1 model, and LP2 model), and utilized the selected improved model (LT model) to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of thermal conductivity on the CLP, examining the impacts of soil particle composition, bulk density, elevation, moisture content, and land use on thermal conductivity. The results show that the LT model is the best in the relevant evaluation indices, with a determination coefficient ( R 2 ) of 0.84, root mean square error ( RMSE ) of 0.18, and relative error ( RE ) of 0.16. Furthermore, the λ on the CLP shows an overall trend of increasing from northwest to southeast, with a lower λ between May and August and a higher one between September and October. The λ of different land use types is as follows: built-up land > cropland > grassland > forest land > barren. The bulk density ( ρ b ) and altitude mainly influence λ in the CLP. The results of this study can provide a theoretical basis for studying hydrothermal variation in the CLP, model application, energy development, and land resource use.

Keywords: soil physics; soil thermal conductivity; spatiotemporal distribution; land use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/12/2190/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/12/2190/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2024:i:12:p:2190-:d:1533855

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().