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Water Availability to Plants

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Application of Soil Physics in Environmental Analyses

Part of the book series: Progress in Soil Science ((PROSOIL))

Abstract

Water is essential for plant growth, and modeling of water availability to plants, root water uptake and actual transpiration rates is important to support hydrological, meteorological and crop growth modeling. Soil texture, soil structure and plant rootability are the crucial factors in determining the amount of soil water available for plants. In a simple approximation, available and non-available water is often defined in terms of concepts like field capacity and permanent wilting point. In this chapter these concepts are discussed, together with more advanced approaches. Topics include the water potentials in the soil-plant-atmosphere system, the relation between transpiration and dry matter accumulation, zones of soil water availability to plants, the limiting water content for optimum plant transpiration and growth, the role of the matric flux potential, a composite soil hydraulic property, and aspects of root system geometry and how they affect crop water availability.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture, University of São Paulo (CENA/USP), São Paulo, Brazil

    Quirijn de Jong van Lier

Authors
  1. Quirijn de Jong van Lier
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Correspondence to Quirijn de Jong van Lier .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Soil Physics, Embrapa Soils, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Wenceslau Geraldes Teixeira

  2. Soils Department, Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Seropédica, RJ, Brazil

    Marcos Bacis Ceddia

  3. Department of Hydrology, Companhia de Pesquisa de Recursos Minerais (CPRM), Geological Survey of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Marta Vasconcelos Ottoni

  4. Soil Physics, Embrapa Soils, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Guilheme Kangussu Donnagema

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de Jong van Lier, Q. (2014). Water Availability to Plants. In: Teixeira, W., Ceddia, M., Ottoni, M., Donnagema, G. (eds) Application of Soil Physics in Environmental Analyses. Progress in Soil Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06013-2_18

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