Modeling root water uptake in soils: opportunities and challenges

Javaux, Mathieu [UCL] Couvreur, Valentin [UCL] Huber, Katrin [Agrosphere, Forschungszentrum of Juelich, Germany] Meunier, Félicien [UCL] Vanderborght, Jan [Agrosphere, Forschungszentrum of Juelich, Germany] Vereecken, Harry [Agrosphere, Forschungszentrum of Juelich, Germany]

Root water uptake modeling concepts have evolved over time. On one hand, mesoscopic models have been developed, which explicitly represent the fluxes at the soil root interfaces. On the other hand macroscopic approaches were proposed, which embedded root water uptake into a sink term in the macroscopic mass balance equation. Today, new techniques for imaging root architecture, water fluxes and soil properties open new possibilities to the understanding of water depletion in planted soils.