Evaluating long-term potential evapotranspiration and soil moisture dynamics at Shanghai City China

Shanghai Jianping High School

Abstract

As the finical hub of China, the Shanghai metropolitan area is one of the most important regions on earth, which requires significant efforts in water, energy and resources management and supply. Ongoing dynamic changes in climate have posed large uncertainties in our ability to better quantify, estimate and predict future hydrological and ecological responses, including soil moisture dynamics and potential evapotranspirative demands. Given these significant implications, in this study, we focused on better understanding long-term dynamic trends in soil moisture and potential evapotranspiration at Shanghai with the Hargreaves equation and 1-Dimensional flow transport with Richard’s equation. We further tested how perturbations in temperature and precipitation patterns influence soil moisture and potential evapotranspiration responses. Our results suggested significant correlation between temperature and potential evapotranspiration as well as precipitation inputs and soil moisture. We believe these results can provide useful insights to help us better understand the hydrological responses at Shanghai to climate change.