Characterization of Water Movement Into and Through Soils During and Immediately After Rainstorms

Authors

C. T. Haan, University of Kentucky

Abstract

The movement of water into and through soils in the unsaturated state is basic to many water resources problems including rainfall-runoff models, ground water recharge, irrigation, drainage, evapotranspiration and the movement of pollutants in soils. This study was conducted in an effort to determine if the flow equation based on Darcy's Law and the continuity equation could be used to describe watershed infiltration and thus be incorporated into hydrologic models.

The results of the study indicate that even on apparently uniform soils there is a great deal of variability in soil water properties. Handling this variability plus the difficulty of solving the flow equation led to the conclusion that a simpler approach to modelling watershed infiltration is needed.

A simple infiltration model was developed and included in a rainfall-runoff model. Tests with the model indicate that it produces satisfactory estimates of monthly runoff from small, rural watersheds.

Publication Date

12-1972

Report Number

56

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/kwrri.rr.56

Funding Information

The project was supported in part by funds provided by the United States Department of Interior to the University of Kentucky Water Resources Institute as authorized by the Water Resources Act of 1964, Public Law 88-379, as office of Water Resources Research Project No. A-025-KY. Partial funding was also provided by the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station as a contribution to Southern Regional Research Project S-53 "Factors Affecting Water Yields from Small Watersheds and Shallow Ground Aquifers".

Repository Citation

Haan, C. T., "Characterization of Water Movement Into and Through Soils During and Immediately After Rainstorms" (1972). KWRRI Research Reports. 139.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/kwrri_reports/139