Comparison of CGMS-WOFOST and HYDRUS-1D Simulation Results for One Cell of CGMS-GRID50

CGMS (Crop Growth Monitoring System) developed by JRC is an integrated system to monitor crop behaviour and quantitative crop yield forecast that operates on a European scale. To simulate water balance in the root zone the simulation model CGMS-WOFOST (SUPIT & VAN DER GOOT 2003) is used that is based on water storage routing. This study was performed to assess a possible impact of simplifications of the water storage routing based model on simulated water regime in the soil profile. Results of CGMS-WOFOST are compared with results of a more precise Richards' equation based model HYDRUS-1D (ŠIMŮNEK et al. 2005). 16 scenarios are simulated using HYDRUS-1D. Each scenario represents a single soil profile presented in the selected cell of GRID50 in the Czech Republic. Geometry of the soil profiles, material (texture) definition, root distributions, measured daily rainfall, calculated daily evaporation from the bare soil surface and transpiration of crop canopy were defined similarly to CGMS-WOFOST inputs according to the data stored in the SGDBE40 database. The soil hydraulic properties corresponding to each soil layer were defined using the class transfer rules (WÖSTEN et al. 1999). The bottom boundary conditions were defined either similarly to CGMS-WOFOST bottom boundary condition as a free drainage or as a constant water level 250 cm below the soil surface to demonstrate a ground water impact on the soil profile water balance. The relative soil moisture (RSM) in the root zone during the vegetation period was calculated to be compared with the similar output from CGMS. The RSM values obtained using HYDRUS-1D are higher than those obtained using CGMS-WOFOST mostly due to higher retention ability of HYDRUS-1D. The reasonably higher RSM values were obtained at the end of simulated period using the HYDRUS-1D for the constant water level 250 cm below the soil surface.