551.551: 551.581.

43
On the Turbulent Structure of Airflow within
Crop Canopies

By E. Inoue
Division of Meteorology, National Institute of Agricultural Sciences
(Manuscript received 26 September1963)

Abstract

Taking the observational evidences of the exponential wind velocity profile within
crop canopies into account, the geometrical and dynamical characteristics of canopy-eddies
have been investigated from both theoretical and observational points of view. The
length, width and depth of canopy-eddy have been suggested to be constant with height
within the canopy layer and to be in proportion to (H-d), where H is the crop height
and d the zero-plane displacement derived from the logarithmic velocity profile above
canopies.
Velocities in three directions of canopy-eddy are also suggested to decrease downward
following the exponential form of exp {-a(1-Z/H)}, where Z is the height measured from
the ground surface beneath the crop height plane.
The connectionsbetween the exponential and the logarithmic velocity profiles within
and above crop canopies and those between the canopy-eddy and the HONAMI-eddy, which
causes waving-plants phenomena (HONAMI), are specificallydealt with.
Applyingthe inertial-subrangetheory of turbulence to canopy-eddiesa method of evaluat-
ing the vertical transfer coefficient within crop canopies is presented and tested with earlier
observations.

1. Introduction Starting from this simple viewpoint ne has

investigated several observations now availa-
In the recent investigation into the airflow
within crop canopies the present author has ble to examine the anticipated interrelation-
ships, and in this paper some evidences of
postulated that at least at the upper part of
existing interrelationships and further specul-
plant-air layers the predominant eddy, say
ations which must await future observations
the canopy-eddy, may have a certain constant
scale independent of the height (Inoue, Lemon will be presented.
and Denmead 1963). This working postulate 2. Canopy flow and canopy-eddy
as well as the uniform leaf arrangements and
the constant resistance coefficient have derived As is shown schematically in Fig. 1 the
air layer within and above crop canopies may
some workable results of exponential wind
velocity and also of exponential transfer coeffi- be conveniently separated into three parts :
cient. I the canopy-eddy layer, which is to be
dealt with in this paper ;
On the other hand, the author has long been
dealing with the waving-plants phenomena, II the lowest part of atmospheric surface
layer, which is in usual represented by
or HONAMI, caused by wind above crop
the logarithmic wind profile of
canopies, in which the predominant eddy just
at the crop height, say the HoNAMI-eddy,
has been especially taken into account (Inoue
1955 a, 1955 b, and 1960), and he has become
to feel that these characteristic eddies of two where
sorts must be in close connection with each V*H=friction velocity, constant with
other. height above crop canopies,

Vol. 41, No. 6, 1963

 318 E. Inoue

The derivation of the exponential profile

within crop canopies from both observational
and theoretical viewpoints has been discussed
elsewhere (Inoue, Lemon and Denmead 1963),
and will be discussed here again only briefly.
One of the most basic hypotheses concern-
ing the canopy-eddies is that the lengths l,l,
lv and lw in three directions of canopy-eddy
are independent of height. This assump-
tion suggests that the eddy structure of
airflow within crop canopies is completely
regulated by the eddies produced at the crop
height layer and that those eddies penetrate
into the lower layer only slightly modify-
U Fig. 1. Rough separation of wind profile ing their scales but not changing them with
and within and above crop canopies. height.
I Canopy-eddy layer, Another is that the coefficient of momentum
II Atmospheric surface layer, and absorption CF, where C is resistance coeffi-
III Mixed layer of canopy-eddies cient and F the leaf area density, is also in-
and surface-eddies. dependent of height. From the botanical
point of view, the leaf area density of plant
=Karman's k constant, 0. 4,
communities might rarely be considered to
d =zero-plane displacement, be of uniform profile. However, the con-
H =height of plants, cept of F discussed here must be aerodynami-
and
cal rather than botanical, and the present
Zo = roughness parameter ; author is inclined to assume that the aerody-
and
namical parameter of CF might be kept uniform
III the lowest part of plant-air layer, in
even if the botanically defined leaf area density
which the existence of both plants and
is not so uniform. Indeed, the flexibility of
ground surface influences the wind profile. crop canopies may allow themselves to adjust
It seems natural to suppose that extremely
dynamically making the aeredynamical leaf
close to the ground surface even within the
area density constant. Of course, this problem
region III the wind profile may be close in
awaits further investigations in the future-
the form to that of II, the logarithmic, and The momentum balance equation within
that the intersection between two layers crop canopies gives rise to
of I and II may not be so sharp giving rise
to a certain transitional region, say the
HoNAMI-air layer.
In this paper, however, at first the canopy-
eddy layer is assumed sharply separated from
the surface layer at the crop height H. Thus,
the wind velocity UH is the characteristics of
both the logarithmic and the exponential
profiles of where *z denotes the frictional stress at the
height Z within crop canopies, Kw (=lw2dU
/dZ) the vertical eddy transfer coefficient and
lw the mixing length, or the depth of canopy-
eddy, of uniform distribution. From the above
assumption of constant lw we get further

Journ. Met. Soc. Japan

 On the Turbulent Structure of Airflow within Crop Canopies 319

the appreciable HoNAMI, the HONAMI-eddy is

characterized by (e. g. Inoue 1960)

and finally we get the exponential profile of

U as is shown by (4).
The characteristic parameter a in (4) is also
expressed by

On the other hand, within crop canopies

and it has been shown that for the usual crop
some characteristics of canopy-eddy have been
canopies such as of rice, wheat and corn a is
found empirically as follows :
within the range of 2 3.
Combining two independent estimations of (a) The length lu and the depth lw of canopy-
eddy are independent of height.
the frictional stress at H, i. e.
(b) The canopy-eddy velocity Vu or <u2>1!2
and the friction velocity V* both vary
exponentially with height, i. e.

and making use of (7) we get further

and
(c) The lateral characteristics of canopy-
eddy may be described in the similar
The above relation implies that the depth of way to those mentioned above.
canopy-eddy can be estimated from paramet- It may be fairly natural to suppose that
ers a, d and Zo characterizing the velocity even the scales of canopy-eddy are governed
by environmental factors such as plant height
profiles within and above the crop canopies.
An example of such estimation for the wheat H, zero-plane displacement d, lengths aerody-
crop canopy by Inoue, Lemon and Denmead namically characterizing leaf arrangements
and stability length.
(1963) has shown the result of l,=0. 12
As the first approximation the lengths of
(H-d), which is not so far from that of the
HONAMI-eddy, 0.4 (H-d). canopy-eddy may be given by

3. Scale of canopy-eddy
It has been proposed by the present
(Inoue 1959) that in the atmospheric surface
layer there might exist some predominant
eddies at each height with scales of Au, A
and Aw, and with velocities of Vu, Vv and Vw.,
which take principal roles in transfer and
diffusion of physical quantities. Some inter-
relationships between the eddy scales and the
environmental length parameters such as the
distance from the effective surface (Z-d) and
the stability length and also those between
eddy velocities and the friction velocity have
been given semi-empirically.
Under the adiabatic condition, when the
wind speed is fairly strong enough to cause
author
and the constants of proportionality Ate, A,
and *w will be sought in the available results
of observations by other workers.
Unfortunately, however, the definition of
eddy scale is still vague, and in this paper
one of the fairly familiar definitions of eddy
length is tentatively adopted as follows :
where Tu is a characteristic time in the so-cal-
led 2/3-power law of the following Eulerian cor-
relation function of wind velocity fluctuations

Vol. 41, No. 6, 1963

320 E. Inoue

canopy-eddy length, and Tu, the passage-time

of canopy-eddy, have been carried out by
Nakagawa (1956) and Uchijima and Wright
(1963) within canopies of paddy and corn

Very fortunately, some evaluations of 1,,, the in Tables 1 and 2, and it must be noticed

Table 1. Characteristics of canopy in the paddy.

H=90 cm, d=60 cm, Z0= 19 cm, UH=34 cm sec-1 (interpolation),

a=2.18 (Nakagawa 1956).

Table 2. Characteristics of canopy-eddy Table 3. Dependence of the canopy-eddy

in the corn field. length on the wind velocity, or
on the change in d. of the corn
field (Stoller and Lemon 1963).
H=240 cm and variable d. Eddy
length is measured at the height
150 cm.

H=140 cm, d=85 cm, Zo=5 cm and

a=2.8 (Uchijima and Wright 1963)

that the proportion factor *u is almost constant

for each crop canopy, although it does
depend upon the kind of crop canopies.
Another interesting observation of the
canopy-eddy length has been presented by due to the change in wind velocity. It must
Stoller and Lemon (1963) for the corn field, be noted here that the length given by Stoller
in which a remarkable change in eddy length and Lemon is not same as that given by (15),
with wind velocity above the canopy has been but that their length is considered to be in
pointed out. The change in wind has been proportion to that of (15).
pointed out also to cause the change in d, and Unfortunately, there are no available data
in Table 3 their results are listed together of direct observations of lv and lw except sev-
with 2. . It seems fairly plausible to suppose eral hypotheses on lw, the mixing-length or
that the change in the canopy-eddy length the canopy-eddy depth, such as by Uchijima
might have been caused by the change in d (1962 b) giving

Journ. Met, Soc. Japan

 On the Turbulent Structure of Airflow within Crop Canopies 321

due to the topographical and mesometeorolo-

gical origins.
Uchijima-Wright's (1963) recent analysis of Although Uchijima and Wright (1963) have
canopy flow of corn field, which derives the claimed that the intensity of turbulence
lw-profile indirectly, however, has shown some <u2>1/2/U within crop canopies is not constant
difficulties in accepting (17) as reproduced in but decreases gradually downward from the
Fig. 2. On the contrary, to the present top of crop height, both results by Nakagawa
(1956) for a paddy and by Inoue, Lemon and
Denmead (1963) for a wheat field have shown
that the turbulence intensity,

is almost independent of height within the

region I (cf. Fig. 1). This means further
that the canopy-eddy energy <u2> is expressed
by

implying that the energy decreases gradually

downward.
Denoting the friction velocity at HONAMI-
layer by V*H, the V*-profile within crop cano-
pies is given by

Fig. 2. Vertical profile of lw within

On the other hand, from the logarithmic
corn crop canopy (Uchijima and
velocity profile within the surface layer we
Wright 1963)
H=140cm, d = 85cm and Zo=5cm. get

author it seems that Fig. 2 suggests the ex-

istence of domain with a constant lw. The
and (20) reduces to
roughly estimated mean value of lw 26 cm
may be further interpreted to be

where H and d are 140 cm and 85 cm, respec-

tively (cf. Table 2). This result may imply
that the depth of canopy-eddy is close to that
of HONAMI-eddy, A=O. 4 (H-d). No obser- which further gives rise to
vations of the canopy-eddy width lv have yet
been carried out. However, it might be sup-
posed that lv is fairly close to l w and that l v
is of the order of (H-d) itself, i. e. 2, 1. If this profile of (u2>1/2J V* should be connected
to that of HUNAMI-eddy at the HONAMI-layer,
4. Energy of canopy-eddy
the parameter
In this paper the values of <u2>, <v2> and
<w2> are tentatively called the canopy-eddy
energy, provided that they do not contain
any contributions of bigger eddies assumably should be 3, and we get

Vol. 41, No. 6, 1963

322 E. Inoue

It seems plausible to suppose that *w is close

to unity and then the interrelationship be-
tween horizontal and vertical canopy-eddy
Qualitatively the above relation implies that velocities is given by
u of the canopy-eddy is reversely in propor- *
tion to In ( (H-d) /Z0}. Making use of the Gin-
ninderra data of H=130 cm, d=50 cm and Z0=
10 cm, given by Inoue, Lemon and Denmead
Comparing (32) and (24) with each other
(1963) for a wheat field, *u is computed as 0. 58,
WE get
which is extremely in good agreement with
the observed value of r,, N 0.55. This coincid-
ence might further imply that for the wheat
field at Ginninderra the canopy-eddy length
should be lu*10 (H-d). Unfortunately, which is also to be examined by future ob-
however, at Ginninderra the determination servations.
Earlier anticipation that Avand Awmay be
of lu has not been carried out successfully.
On the other hand, Nakagawa's (1956) and close to each other may further lead another
anticipation that *v and ** might be also close
Uchijima-Wright's (1963) results indicate
that their *u's are several times smaller than to each other.
that of the H0NAMI-eddy, i. e., **10, and Some promising investigations into the fine
that computed values of ru by (26) are sever- structure of canopy-eddies have been carried
al times greater than those observed. The out by Uchijima and Wright (1963), in which
reasons of these discrepancies should be in- the characteristics of turbulent velocity u
vestigated in the future. have been principally dealt with. Undoubted-
Even though there are yet no available ly, however, more profound investigations
observations of <v2>1/2and <w2>1/2,it may be not only into velocity components u, v and
natural to suppose that they are both in w, but also into fluctuations in temperature,
humidity, and carbondioxide concentration
proportion to V* as
are urgently needed.
5. Transfer coefficients of airflow within
crop canopies
The problems of Km-profile within crop
canopies, which have long been kept out of
the interest of almost all micrometeorologists,
Another hypothesis concerning, the energy dis-
have become vividly discussed by agricultural
sipation of canopy-eddy might be introduced
as follows : physicists (e. g. Uchijima 1962 a and Inoue
1963), since the important role of Kw in the
analyses of plant production has been re-
cognized.
From the relations (4), (6) and (9) the Kw-
which is quite analogous to that for the Ho- profile is theoretically given by
NAMI-eddy, i. e.

From these considerations we can get

and we can estimate the Ku, values semi-

empirically by means of observations of U-
which should be examined by future obser- profiles above and within crop canopies.
vations. The above exponential profile has been

Journ. Met. Soc. Japan

 On the Turbulent Structure of Airflow within Crop Canopies 323

obtained by Uchijima and Wright (1963) from The rate of energy dissipation is evaluated
the indirect estimation of Kw in a corn field, from the structure function of locally isotropic
in which Kw is computed by eddies as

where *H is the surface friction at the Ho-

NAMI-layer and is computed by (cf. (21)). where e is a universal constant of the order
of unity and is here given as 1. 5, i. e. (2/e)
(2/*) 312
=1.54. On the other hand, is given by

Besides these aerodynamic methods of com-

puting Km-values there seem to exist many
other methods (Inoue 1963). For example, and then we get
estimating separately the scale and velocity
of canopy-eddy we may approximate

Making use of Nakagawa's (1956) data of

<u2>1/2and lu (cf. Table 1) the quantities of
<u2>1!2
As has been stated before, the estimations of e and Kw are computed and listed in Table 1,
lv, lu„
l*„ <v2,112
<v2,1/2and <w2)112
<w2*1/2are not yet so feasible, too. As will be readily understood the eval-
and sometimes Ku in (37) has been adopted uation of (dU/dZ), the first derivative of
as a crude estimation of Kw. In such a case, U-profile, is fairly difficult, and in the present
however, certain transformation coefficients study . the derivatives have been read graph-
such as (cf. (39) ) ically on the smoothed curve of U -profile. This
might be one of the reasons why .computed
Kw values in Table 1 do not follow the ex-
ponential profile.
Some other quantities of interest, such as

may work effectively. are also computed as shown in Table 1.

Among many other aerodynamic methods
of evaluating Kw particularly with the concept 6. Canopy-eddy versus HoNAMI-eddy
of eddy structure (cf. Pasquill 1963), one From the preceding investigations it seems
special method will be presented here with fairly reasonable to suppose that the canopy-
a practical example referring to Nakagawa's eddy comes from the HONAMI-eddy down-
(1956) observation. ward from the HONAMI-layer to the plant-air
This method is especially concerned with layer, being slightly modified by the existence
the mass rate of energy dissipation, *, ~, of tur- of plants at least for paddies and wheat fields.
bulent eddies taking the similarity theory of It must, however, be examined more care-
turbulence into account, and has been applied fully by the future observations whether the
to the atmospheric surface layer (Inoue et al. transition from the HONAMI- to the canopy-
1955 and Pasquill 1963) . eddy may occur so sharply at the height H
* This method has been called by Pasquill the or there may exist a layer with a certain
"high -frequency energy" method of evaluating the depth, say the HONAMI-air layer, in which
transfer coefficient. the transition occurs rather gradually.

Vol. 41, No. 6, 1963

324 E. Inoue

Adopting the sharp transition between two stimulated by the findings of velocity-depend-
layers of I and II, the intersection of the ent d, which gave rise to the special velocity
logarithmic and the exponential profiles will range with almost constant passage-time of
be discussed here from rather purely theoreti- AuH/UH or 10.8 (H-d) /UH. This means that
cal point of view. there exists a certain velocity range where
At the HoNAMI-layer of the height H the (H-d) increases or d decreases with UH. On
velocity gradients of both profiles are given the other hand, under the condition of same
respectively by friction velocity UH also depends upon d and
Z0. Thus, the interrelationships between the
friction velocity or the wind velocity at a
certain specific height sufficiently greater than
H and two parameters of d and Zo were care-
fully sought (Tani et al. 1955, Tani 1960
and Inoue 1963).
These velocity-dependent d and Zo are also
supposed to influence the canopy-eddy. An
influence of wind velocity to the canopy-eddy
length through the change in d has been shown
in Table 3, and another effect might be antici-
pated on the canopy-eddy velocity or the factor
ru = (u2>1/2/U due to changes in both d and Zo*.

7. Future problems
In the preceding sections the author has
Empirically we have seen that the right-hand dealt with the probable characteristics of
side of (46) is of the order of unity and that canopy-eddy to be found in highly flexible
for the paddy (Nakagawa 1956), wheat field crop canopies, which might not prevent so
(Inoue, Lemon and Denmead 1963) and corn severely the intrusion of H0NAMI-eddy. It
field (Uchijima and Wright 1963) the com- must be admitted, however, that the present
puted numbers are 3. 33, 0.331 and 2. 64, re- treatments are too much speculative without
spectively. any profound observational evidences, and
At the intersection of two Km-profiles within that tremendous amounts of future work are
and above crop canopies, we get needed.
It may be worthwhile to mention here some
of the future works as follows :
(a) The definite physical laws governing the
eddy scale must be found.
(b) The influence of thermal stratification to
scale and velocity both of the HoNAMI-
eddy and of the canopy-eddy must be
detected.
(c) The airflow within non-flexible canopies
such as of comparatively stiff forests
For the three fields mentioned above the right- must be investigated and must be com-
hand side of (49) is computed to be 1. 60, 0.725 pared with that within flexible canopies
and 1. 10, respectively. such as of wheat and corn.
In his earlier study on HoNAMI the present * From the observations within crop canopies
author has paid special attentions to the coin- of corn Uchijima and Wright (1963) have presented
cidence of the passage-time of HONAMI-eddy, an emnirical relation showing
TuH=AUHIUH (cf. (15)) and the period of natur-
al vibration of plant communities, ca. 1 sec for which might be interpreted as
paddies (Inoue 1955 a). This speculation was u*U *

Jurn. Met. Soc. Japan

 On the Turbulent Structure of Airflow within Crop Canopies 325

(d) The decay or deformation of canopy- References

eddies close to the ground surface must
be considered to take the existence of Inoue, E., 1955 a : Studies of the phenomena of
III-layer into account. waving plants ("HONAMI") caused by wind,
Part 1. Mechanism and characteristics of
(e) The concepts of C and F must be re-
waving plants phenomena. J. Agr. Met.
considered more carefully from both
botanical and aerodynamical points of (Tokyo), 11, 18-22.
1955 b : I bid., Part 2. Spectra of waving
view.
plants and plants vibration. J. Agr. Met.
(f) The special region of HoNAMI-air layer
(Tokyo), 11, 87-90.
at the transition between two layers of
1959: The effects of thermal stratifica-
I and II must be investigated more pro- tion on turbulent diffusion in the atmospheric
foundly from both theoretical and obser- surface layer. Adv. Geophys., 6, 319-330.
vational points of view. 1960: Studies of phenomena of waving
(g) The knowledge of the structure of canopy- plants ("HONAMI") caused by wind, Part 6.
eddy should be applied to the diffusion Methods of artificially controlling the waving
phenomena within crop canopies and plants phenomena. J. Agr. Met. (Tokyo), 16,
should also be examined by careful ex- 83-84.
periments of diffusion within canopies. 1963: The environment of plant sur-
faces. Environmental Control of Plant Growth,
8. Conclusions Acad. Press, New York and London, pp. 23-
31.
E. R. Lemon and 0. T. Denmead, 1963:
Although there are still many unsolved
A preliminary investigation into the airflow
problems, some of fundamental characteristics within crop canopies. To be published.
of the canopy-eddy which governs the build-
N. Tani and K. Imai, 1955: Measure-
up of airflow within crop canopies seem to be
ments of the wind turbulence over cultivated
clarified in terms of the zero-plane displace- fields. Bull. Nat. Inst. Agr. Sci. Japan, A, No.
ment and the roughness parameters which 4, 1-36.
characterize also the airflow above crop cano- Nakagawa, Y., 1956: Studies on the air flow
pies. amongst the stalks in a paddy field (prelimi-
It is strongly desired that the raised future nary report). J. Agr. Met. (Tokyo), 12, 61-63.
problems will be attacked by many workers Pasquill, F., 1963: The determination of eddy dif-
interested in the problem of airflow within fusivity from measurements of turbulent energy.
crop canopies. Quart. J. Roy. Met. Soc., 89, 95-106.
Stoller, J, and E. R. Lemon, 1963: Production
Acknowledgement Res. Rept. no. 72, Agricultural Research
Service, U. S. Dept. Agriculture.
This paper was originally prepared during Tani. N., 1960: The wind on the cultivated field.
the stay of the present author at Division of J. Agr. Met. (Tokyo), 16, 89-93.
Plant Industry, C. S. I. R. 0., Canberra, Austra- Tani, N., E. Inoue and K. Imai, 1955: Some mea-
lia. The author wishes to express his surements of wind over the cultivated field
(3). J. Agr. Met. (Tokyo), 10, 105-108.
gratitude to Dr. J. R. Philip, Division of Plant
Uchijima, Z., 1962a: Studies on the microclimate
Industry, C. S. I. R. 0., Australia, and to Dr.
within the plant communities. (1) On the
R. A. Wooding, Applied Mathematics Labor-
turbulent transfer coefficient within plant layer.
atory, D. S. I. R., New Zealand,, for their J. Agr. Met. (Tokyo), 18, 1-9.
valuable stimuli which have urged the author 1962b: Ibid. (2) The scale of tur-
to consider the interrelationships between the bulence and the momentum transfer within
HANAMI-and the canopy-eddy. The author plant layers. J. Agr. Met. (Tokyo), 18, 58-65.
is also greatly indebted to Dr. Z. Uchijima, and J. L. Wright, 1963: An ex-
National Institute of Agricultural Sciences, for perimental study of air-flow in a corn field.
his stimulating discussions on the build-up Unpublished manuscript.
mechanism of airflow within crop canopies.

Vol. 41, No. 6, 1963

326 E. Inoue

植 物 群 落 内 部 の 気 流 の 乱 流 構 造 に っ い て

井 上 栄 一

(農業:技術研究所 気象科)

麦畑で行なわれた観測結果か ら経験 的に得 られた指数関数型 の畦間風速分布

に し げ き され,こ の型 の風 速 分 布 を与 え るた め に 必 要 で あ ろ うと思 わ れ る畦 間 気 流 の乱 流 構 造 に つ い て 考 え た｡こ こ

にHは 植 物 群 落 の高 さ を表 わ す｡

これ まで に 行 な われ たわ ず か ば か りの 観 測 か ら,畦 間 で の うず の大 き さ とエ ネ ル ギ ー に つ い て定 性 的 な 知識 も得 ら
れ て い る し,植 物 群 落上 部 で は風 速 分 布 が対 数法 則

で よ く表 現 され る こ とも知 られ て い る｡こ こにdは 地 表面 修 正 量 を表 わ す｡

著 者 の 穂 波 現象 に 関す る考 察 結 果 を利 用 して,畦 間 気流 の 中 の うず は 穂 波 を 生 ず る うず が 若 干 変 形 され た も の で あ
る とし て,指 数 分布 式 を特 長 づ け る α が 植 物 群 落 の 葉 の繁 茂 度 やdな ど と経 験 的 に関 係 づ け られ てい る｡

Journ. Met. Soc. Japan