Climate Change and Urban Grass Land Soil Moisture Conditions in South-Western Ontario, Canada

Abstract

Using the past 45 years of climate data in south-western Ontario, Canada and a deterministic continuous simulation model, this study investigates the long-term variability in rain-fed soil moisture in urban areas as influenced by climate change. Statistical analyses of four variables, i.e., soil moisture, precipitation, temperature and evapotranspiration were carried out. As found from other studies for other locations, these analyses confirm in creasing temperatures and average growing season precipitation in south-western Ontario. Results show that both overall soil moisture and evapotranspiration have increased throughout the 45-year period. The probability/frequency distributions of soil moisture were obtained and the analysis shows an increasing average growing season soil moisture availability from the 1960's to the 1990's. The direct influence of precipitation and temperature on soil moisture and evapotranspiration were examined, revealing a stronger relationship of soil moisture and evapotranspiration with precipitation rather than temperature. Overall increasing average growing season soil moistures have very likely resulted from overall increasing rainfall during the growing seasons in south-western Ontario.

Keywords: temperature, precipitation, evapotranspirati on, continuous simulation, frequency distributions