Method for Determination of Hydraulic Conductivity in Unsaturated Porous Media

Abstract

A new procedure for in situ determination of saturated hydraulic conductivity of an initially unsaturated soil is proposed. The procedure is based on the measurement of the rise of a ground‐water mound in an initially unsaturated zone above an impervious layer receiving uniform recharge from an infiltrometer. In this paper analytical solutions of equations describing the growth of a groundwater mound above an impervious layer are compared with laboratory and field experiments to demonstrate the applicability of the method to the determination of saturated hydraulic conductivity of soils in shallow subsurface.