Soil water regime of agricultural field and forest ecosystems

The unsaturated zone of soil is one of the most important and complicated parts considering the water movement in the hydrologic cycle. Water transfer through its upper and lower boundary directly influences the amount of water in this zone. The depth of groundwater table usually delimits the lower boundary. The soil surface with or without plant canopy is the upper boundary. The soil surface reacts directly on meteorological conditions primary through evapotranspiration. It is determining the inflow of precipitation into deeper layers of a soil profile. Both physical and hydrophysical properties of the upper soil layer are changed under the extreme meteorological conditions. In case of such conditions the water can flow along preferential pathways down to the groundwater without filling up the soil matrix. Changes of physical and hydrophysical characteristics of the soil surface layer or of the root zone depend on the vegetation type, too. The water storage of 0–30 cm and 30–60 cm soil layers was calculated from monitored data of soil water contents in two different ecosystems, and the calculated water storages were compared with the integral water contents that are related to hydrolimits (field capacity, point of decreased availability and wilting point) in 1999 and 2000. It should be noted that it was considerably dryer in 2000 than in 1999, and during the vegetation period, it was also warmer in 2000 than in 1999. The higher air temperatures during the vegetation season and the lower cumulative rainfall in 2000 comparing to 1999 resulted in a decrease in the integral water contents in the root zone.