A simulation model of net primary production at watershed scale in the hilly area of Loess Plateau, China

A vegetation-soil-integrated-model (VSIM) to simulate net primary production at watershed scale was developed to explore the effect of soil water dynamic on the primary production processes in arid and semi-arid in northwest China. The model coupled a soil water dynamic module and a vegetation growth module. The former is a daily time step, multi-horizon and distributed spatial model. The later included a mechanism model of stomatal conductance based on the mechanical character of guard cell, which used to reflect both the influence of soil water potential to stomatal conductance and the stomatal control to net photosynthesis and transpiration processes at leaf scale. Scaling up to canopy and watershed scale through considered the effect of canopy structure and heterogeneity of topography. The main inputs of the model includes photosynthetic characteristics of main vegetation type, metrological data, soil texture and physical properties, and DEM. The outputs are soil water of 4 soil layers, evaporation, transpiration, runoff, net primary production and biomass of leaf, stem and root. The model was used in Zhifanggou watershed, which located in forest steppe zone and belonged to hilly area of Loess Plateau, and the model validation was tested by field observation data sets and RS data sets. In the modeling experiment, simulations show to provide good approximation with field observation data. The simulated biomass of grass and sub-shrub are better than that of arbor and shrub, and the dynamic of LAI have well coherence with the results calculated by Landsat TM data. The model could reflect the processes of precipitation-runoff at the watershed, and indicate the spatio-temporal changes of soil water content.