Impact of Soil Texture on the Simulation of Land Surface Processes in China

On the basis of Community Land Model version 3.5 (CLM3.5) and two soil texture datasets such as the Second National Soil Survey of China (SNSS) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), this study investigates the impacts of soil texture on the simulation of land surface processes in China. By analyzing soil hydrological and thermal properties derived from soil texture, it is determined that soil texture plays a more important role on the soil hydrological characteristics, such as saturated soil moisture and saturated hydraulic conductivity, than that on its thermal properties. Model outputs show that soil texture has a significant impact on soil moisture, runoff, infiltration, surface latent heat, sensible heat, and heat flux, while little impact on absorbed solar radiation and albedo. Moreover, it is shown that soil moisture values are closer to the observations when simulated by CLM3.5 with SNSS than those simulated with FAO. Therefore, to improve the performance of the land surface model, particularly for soil hydrology, this study suggests the use of observation-based soil texture datasets, such as those of SNSS, in the future.