WAYS v1: a hydrological model for root zone water storage simulation on a global scale

Abstract

The soil water stored in the root zone is a critical variable for many applications, as it plays a key role in several hydrological and atmospheric processes. Many studies have been conducted to obtain reliable information on soil water in the root zone layer. However, most of them are mainly focused on the soil moisture within a certain depth rather than the water stored in the entire rooting system. In this work, a hydrological model named the Water And ecosYstem Simulator (WAYS) is developed to simulate the root zone water storage (RZWS) on a global scale. The model is based on a well-validated lumped model and has now been extended to a distribution model. To reflect the natural spatial heterogeneity of the plant rooting system across the world, a key variable that influences RZWS, i.e., root zone storage capacity (RZSC), is integrated into the model. The newly developed model is first evaluated based on runoff and RZWS simulations across 10 major basins. The results show the ability of the model to mimic RZWS dynamics in most of the regions through comparison with proxy data, the normalized difference infrared index (NDII). The model is further evaluated against station observations, including flux tower and gauge data. Despite regional differences, generally good performance is found for both the evaporation and discharge simulations. Compared to existing hydrological models, WAYS's ability to resolve the field-scale spatial heterogeneity of RZSC and simulate RZWS may offer benefits for many applications, e.g., agriculture and land–vegetation–climate interaction investigations. However, the results from this study suggest an additional evaluation of RZWS is required for the regions where the NDII might not be the correct proxy.