Green-Ampt One-Dimensional Infiltration from a Ponded Surface into a Heterogeneous Soil

Abstract

Saturated hydraulic conductivity and wetting front pressure head (as soil properties) on an abrupt Green-Ampt front are assumed to increase and decrease with depth of a porous heterogeneous soil subject to a constant ponding or infiltration-evaporation depleted ponding on the surface. The corresponding Cauchy problem for a nonlinear ordinary differential equation describing the wetting front propagation in the soil profile is solved by computer algebra routines. Sensitivity of the cumulative infiltration to variation of hydraulic conductivity and capillarity is studied. A concave-convex infiltration graph is obtained for some values of parameters of the assumed exponential growth/decay of conductivity/capillarity. Texture of soil samples collected from a pedon is used for calculation of conductivity from a pedotransfer function. Synthesis of heterogeneity resulting in a specified front dynamics is discussed.