2016
Ref: SCART-2016-0016

Direct measurement of evapotranspiration from a forest using a superconducting gravimeter

Van Camp, Michel ; de Viron, Olivier ; Pajot-Métivier, Gwendoline ; Casenave, Fabien ; Watlet, Arnaud ; Dassargues, Alain ; Vanclooster, Marnik


published in Geophysical Research Letters, 43 (2016)

Abstract: Evapotranspiration (ET) controls the flux between the land surface and the atmosphere. Assessing the ET ecosystems remains a key challenge in hydrology. We have found that the ET water mass loss can be directly inferred from continuous gravity measurements: as water evaporates and transpires from terrestrial ecosystems, the mass distribution of water decreases, changing the gravity field. Using continuous superconducting gravity measurements, we were able to identify daily gravity changes at the level of, or smaller than 10^-9 nm.s-2 (or 10^-10 g) per day. This corresponds to 1.7 mm of water over an area of 50 ha. The strength of this method is its ability to enable a direct, traceable and continuous monitoring of actual ET for years at the mesoscale with a high accuracy.

Keyword(s): Evapotranspiration ; Deciduous forest ; Superconducting gravimeter ; Time variable gravity
DOI: 10.1002/2016GL070534
Links: link


The record appears in these collections:
Royal Observatory of Belgium > Seismology & Gravimetry
Science Articles > Peer Reviewed Articles



 Record created 2016-09-15, last modified 2016-09-15