Fertilization and water both affect root water uptake in the nutrient and water cycle of the Soil-Plant-Atmosphere-Continuum (SPAC). In this study, dual stable isotopes (D and (18)O) were used to determine seasonal variations in water uptake patterns of summer maize under different fertilization treatments in Beijing, China during 2013-2014. The contributions of soil water at different depths to water uptake were quantified by the MixSIAR Bayesian mixing model. Water uptake was mainly sourced from soil water in the 0-20cm depth at the seeding (67.7%), jointing (60.5%), tasseling (47.5%), dough (41.4%), and harvest (43.9%) stages, and the 20-50cm depth at the milk stage (32.8%). Different levels of fertilization application led to considerable differences in the proportional contribution of soil water at 0-20cm (6.0-58.5%) and 20-50cm (6.1-26.3%). There was little difference of contributions in the deep layers (50-200cm) among treatments in 2013, whereas differences were observed in 50-90cm at the milk stage and 50-200cm at the dough stage during 2014. The main water uptake depth was concentrated in the upper soil layers (0-50cm) during the wet season (2013), whereas a seasonal drought in 2014 promoted the contribution of soil water in deep layers. The contribution of soil water was significantly and positively correlated with the proportions of root length (r=0.753, p<0.01). The changes of soil water distribution were consistent with the seasonal variation in water uptake patterns. The present study identified water sources for summer maize under varying fertilization treatments and provided scientific implications for fertilization and irrigation management.

Global climate change and diverse human activities have resulted in distinct temporal–spatial variability of watershed hydrological regimes, especially in water‐limited areas. This study presented a comprehensive investigation of streamflow and sediment load changes on multi‐temporal scales (annual, flood season, monthly and daily scales) during 1952–2011 in the Yanhe watershed, Loess Plateau. The results indicated that the decreasing trend of precipitation and increasing trend of potential evapotranspiration and aridity index were not significant. Significant decreasing trends (p < 0.01) were detected for both the annual and flood season streamflow, sediment load, sediment concentration and sediment coefficient. The runoff coefficient exhibited a significantly negative trend (p < 0.01) on the flood season scale, whereas the decreasing trend on the annual scale was not significant. The streamflow and sediment load during July–August contributed 46.7% and 86.2% to the annual total, respectively. The maximum daily streamflow and sediment load had the median occurrence date of July 31, and they accounted for 9.7% and 29.2% of the annual total, respectively. All of these monthly and daily hydrological characteristics exhibited remarkable decreasing trends (p < 0.01). However, the contribution of the maximum daily streamflow to the annual total progressively decreased (−0.07% year⁻¹), while that of maximum daily sediment load increased over the last 60 years (0.08% year⁻¹). The transfer of sloping cropland for afforestation and construction of check‐dams represented the dominant causes of streamflow and sediment load reductions, which also made the sediment grain finer. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The flow–sediment relationship is important to understand the soil erosion and land degradation processes in severe eroded areas. This study researches on variations of streamflow, sediment load, and flow–sediment relationship on multi‐temporal scales (annual, flood season and, monthly scales) in a highly erodible catchment of Chinese Loess Plateau. The results demonstrated that the streamflow, sediment load, sediment concentration, runoff coefficient, and sediment coefficient all experienced evident reductions, and the decrease in the middle and downstream stations was more significant compared with the upstream stations. The land use changes and implementation of soil and water conservation measures played major role for the streamflow and sediment load reductions with respect to precipitation change, and the runoff coefficient and sediment coefficient linearly decreased with the percentage of conservation measure area. The runoff‐sediment yield relationship on annual, flood season, and monthly scales could be generally characterized by the linear function, and the slopes during the post‐change period was lower than those during the pre‐change period of sediment load. The sediment concentration–streamflow discharge relationship represented consistent form over the entire study period, and the logarithmic function was appropriate to describe the relationships on the three timescales. The decrease of sediment concentration contributed greatest (60·7%) to sediment reduction compared with runoff productivity of rainfall (30·2%) and precipitation (9·1%). Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Irrigation and fertilization both affect the water cycle in agricultural ecosystems. It is difficult to quantify root water uptake (RWU) which varies with crop development and seasons. In this study, a Bayesian mixing model (MixSIAR) coupling with dual stable isotopes (D and ¹⁸O) was used to quantify RWU patterns for winter wheat under different irrigation and fertilization treatments between 2014 and 2015 in Beijing, China. The main RWU depth during the greening-jointing, jointing-heading, heading-filling, and filling-harvest stages was 0–20 cm, 20–70 cm, 0–20 cm, and 20–70 cm, respectively, which showed water uptake proportions of 67.0%, 42.0%, 38.7%, and 34.9%, respectively. Significant differences in RWU patterns appeared between the 2014 and 2015 seasons. The main RWU depth increased gradually from 0–20 cm at the greening-jointing stage to 20–70 cm at the jointing-heading stage and 70–150 cm during the heading to harvest period in 2014. However, winter wheat primarily took up soil water from the 0–70 cm layer in 2015. The average water uptake proportion in the top layer (0–20 cm) in 2015 (42.6%) was remarkably higher than that in 2014 (28.7%). There was a significantly negative relationship (p < 0.01) between the water uptake proportion and the proportion of root length at the filling-harvest stage in 2014, while no significant correlation (p > 0.05) was found in 2015. Variable distributions of root characteristics and soil moisture induced by different irrigation and fertilization comprehensively affected the RWU profile, particularly under severe drought environments in 2015. Treatments with fertilization of 105 kg hm⁻² N or irrigation of 20 mm during the greening-jointing stage significantly promoted water uptake contribution in the 70–150 cm (32.2%) and 150–200 cm (23.5%) layers at the jointing-heading stage in 2015, while other treatments had a shallow dominant RWU depth (0–20 cm). The planned wetting layer should be kept within the main RWU depth of 0–70 cm for improving irrigation water use efficiency.