9.

4 Evaporation from the Soil Surface

Water is lost from the root zone of the soil profile in three ways. It can percolate below
the root zone, it can evaporate from the soil surface, and it can be taken up by plants. The
redistribution calculations just discussed can be used to find the percolation. Evaporation and
transpiration still need to be discussed.

Evaporation from the Soil Surface

FIGURE 9.5. Redistribution of soil water. Data from Fig. 9.4 plotted on a log-log
scale and extended in time.

Figure 9.6 shows the course of evaporation rate over time for three soil drying
experiments. Two stages of dryling can be identified, a steady constant rate stage and a falling
rate stage. The transition between the two occurs when the soil surface becomes dry. The
evaporation rate during the first stage is determined by the evaporative demand of the
atmosphere. If the demand is high, this stage is short. The lower the evaporative demand, the
longer this stage lasts. Coarse textured soils which store little water near the surface have short
first stage drying periods. The sand in Fig. 9.6 stores so little water that first stage drying is
almost absent.
At the onset of second stage drying, the soil limits the rate of supply to the soil surface.
The rate of drying could be determined by calculating the vapor conductance of the dry layer
and the vapor pressure difference across it, but the rate is really determined by the ability of
the soil to conduct water to the evaporating surface. The form of the solution is similar, again,
to the heat flow equation. From the onset of second stage drying the evaporation rate decreases
linearly with the inverse of the square root of time, so the cumulative soil surface evaporation
during second stage drying (the integral of the rate over time) is proportional to the square root
of time:

where tl is the time (days) that the first stage drying ends, and C is a constant that depends on
soil type. Table 9.2 contains rough estimates of C for several soil textures and also includes
approximate values of total cumulative soil surface evaporation for both first and second stage
drying.

FIGURE 9.6. Evaporation rate for loam at high and low evaporative demand and for sand at
high evaporative demand.

Figure 9.7 shows cumulative evaporation versus time for the soils in Fig. 9.6.
Interestingly, evaporative demand seems to have little effect on total water evaporated. Early
on the high demand soil gets ahead, but the low demand soil stays in first stage evaporation
longer and eventually almost catches up. The sand loses much less water than the loam. This
is because the surface dries quickly and the coarse material has such a low hydraulic
conductivity that it is not able to conduct water to the surface. The ultimate in water
conservation is attained with a fine gravel surface, which has almost no storage and very low
unsaturated conductivity, but transmits rain downward very readily. The pebble pavement
sometimes seen in deserts, where the fine material has been blown away by the wind

TABLE 9.2. Approximate characteristics of soil surface

Transpiration and Plant Water Uptake

FIGURE 9.7. Cumulative evaporation for the soils in Fig. 9.6.

leaving only coarse material, is a good natural example of a high efficiency storage system.