Variability in Specific Yield under Shallow Water Table Conditions
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 14, Issue 12
Abstract
Investigation is provided concerning the variable behavior of specific yield under shallow water table conditions ( below land surface). Traditionally, specific yield has been defined as the water released from pumping of a phreatic aquifer down by a unit head. It is often used as a fixed value in groundwater flow models. This study seeks to elucidate variability due to natural processes of evapotranspiration (ET) and recharge. variability is of fundamental importance for modeling hydrologic response from stresses and for determination of water budget of a catchment. HYDRUS 1D—a numerical model solving Richard’s equation for saturated—unsaturated flow in one dimension is used to simulate the behavior of specific yield for a soil type representative of west central Florida. It was found, that for various cases examined (e.g., ET and infiltration), the magnitude of specific yield varied with depth to water table. For infiltration response, the variation in the specific yield exhibited strong dependence on the interevent time. For ET stress, the specific yield first increased rapidly to attain a maximum value and then declined steadily to ultimately become less than specific yield at equilibrium moisture conditions. The study indicated that assumptions of constant specific yield for different stresses can yield erroneous results especially in shallow water table environments. For deeper water table it was found that variation was not that pronounced and a constant value of specific yield can be used as an approximate value for simulating water table fluctuations.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Barlow, P. M., DeSimone, L. A., and Moench, A. F. (2000). “Aquifer response to stream-stage and recharge variations. II: Convolution method and applications.” J. Hydrol., 230, 211–229.
Brooks, R. H., and Corey, A. T. (1964). “Hydraulic properties of porous media.” Hydrologic Paper 3, Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, Colo.
Carlisle, V. W., Sodek, F., Collins, M. E., Hammond, L. C. and Harris, W. G. (1989). “Characterization data for selected Florida soils.” Soil Science Department Research Report No. 89-1, University of Florida, Gainesville.
Crosbie, R. S., Binning, P., and Kalma, J. D. (2005). “A time series approach to inferring groundwater recharge using the water table fluctuation method.” Water Resour. Res., 41, 1–9.
De Silva, M., Nachabe, M. H., Simunek, J., and Carnahan, R. (2008). “Simulating root water uptake from a heterogeneous vegetative cover.” Drain. Eng., 134(2), 167–174.
Diodato, D. M. (2000). “Software spotlight.” Ground Water, 38(1), 10–11.
dos Santos, A. G., Jr., and Youngs, E. G. (1969). “A study of the specific yield in land-drainage situations.” J. Hydrol., 8, 59–81.
Duke, H. R. (1972). “Capillary properties of soils-influence upon specific yield.” Trans. ASAE, 15(4), 688–691.
Feddes, R. A., Kowalik, P. J., and Zaradny, H. (1978). Simulation of field water use and crop yield, Wiley, New York.
Freeze, R., and Cherry, J. (1979). Groundwater, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Gillham, R. W. (1984). “The capillary fringe and its effect on water table response.” J. Hydrol., 67, 307–324.
Harbaugh, A. W. (2005). “MODFLOW-2005, the U.S. Geological Survey modular ground-water model: The ground-water flow process.” U.S. Geological Survey Techniques and Methods 6-A16, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Va.
Healy, R. W., and Cook, P. G. (2002). “Using groundwater levels to estimate recharge.” Hydrogeol. J., 10, 91–109.
Heliotis, F. D., and Dewitt, C. B. (1987). “Rapid water table response to rainfall in a northern peatland ecosystem.” Water Resour. Bull., 23(6), 1011–1016.
Hernandez, T., Nachabe, M., Ross, M., and Obeysekera, J. (2003). “Runoff from variable source areas in humid shallow water table environments.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 39(1), 75–85.
Hillel, D. (1998). Environmental soil physics, Academic, San Diego.
HYDRUS-1D software package for simulating the movement of water, heat, and multiple solutes in variably saturated media, version 3.0, HYDRUS software series 1. (2005). Dept. of Environmental Sciences, Univ. of California Riverside, Riverside, Calif.
Jamison, V. C., and Kroth, E. M. (1958). “Available moisture storage capacity in relation to textural composition and organic matter content of several Missouri soils.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am Proc., 22, 189–192.
Jayatilaka, C. J., and Gillham, R. J. (1996). “A deterministic-empirical model of the effect of the capillary fringe on near-stream area runoff.” J. Hydrol., 184, 299–315.
Linsley, R. K., and Franzini, J. B. (1972). Water resources engineering, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Loheide, S. P., II, Butler, J. J., Jr., and Gorelick, S. M. (2005). “Estimation of groundwater consumption by phreatophytes using diurnal water table fluctuations: A saturated-unsaturated flow assessment.” Water Resour. Res., 41, 1–14.
McWhorter, D. B., and Sunada, D. K. (1977). Ground-water hydrology and hydraulics, Water Resources Publications, Fort Collins, Colo.
Meyboom, P. (1967). "Groundwater studies in the Assiniboine River drainage basin. II: Hydrologic characteristics of phreatophytic vegetation in south-central Saskatchewan.” Geological Survey of Canada Bulletin 139, Geological Survey of Canada, Ottawa.
Mualem, Y. (1976). “A new model predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated porous media.” Water Resour. Res., 12(3), 513–522.
Nachabe, M. (2002). “Analytic expressions for transient specific yield and shallow water table drainage.” Water Resour. Res., 38(10), 1193.
Nachabe, M., Shah, N., Ross, M., and Vomacka, J. (2005). “Evapotranspiration of two vegetation covers in a shallow water table environments.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 69, 492–499.
Neuman, S. P. (1987). “On methods of determining specific yield.” Ground Water, 25, 679–684.
Novakowski, K. S., and Gillham, R. W. (1988). “Field investigations of the nature of water table response to precipitation in shallow water table environments.” J. Hydrol., 97, 23–32.
Nwankwor, G. I., Cherry, J. A., and Gillham, R. W. (1984). “A comparative study of specific yield determinations for a shallow sand aquifer.” Ground Water, 22(6), 764–772.
Nwankwor, G. I., Gillham, R. W., van der Kamp, G., and Akindunni, F. F. (1992). “Unsaturated and saturated flow in response to pumping of an unconfined aquifer: Field evidence of delayed drainage.” Ground Water, 30(5), 690–700.
Rahgozar, M. (2006). “Estimation of evapotranspiration using continuous soil moisture measurements.” Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of South Florida, Tampa, Fla.
Ross, M., Geurink, J., Aly, A., Tara, P., Trout, P., and Jobes, T. (2004). “Integrated hydrologic model (IHM) Vol. I: Theory manual.” Tampa Bay Water, March 2004, Clearwater, FL.
Ross, M., Geurink, J., Said, A., Aly, A., and Tara, P. (2005). “Evapotranspiration conceptualization in the HSPF-MODFLOW integrated models.” J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc., 41(5), 1013–1025.
Said, A., Nachabe, M., Ross, M., and Vomacka, J. (2005). “Methodology for estimating specific yield in shallow water environment using continuous soil moisture data.” J. Irrig. Drain. Eng., 131(6), 533–538.
Shah, N., Nachabe, M., and Ross, M. (2007). “Extinction depth and evapotranspiration from ground water under selected land covers.” Ground Water, 45(3), 329–338.
Simunek, J., and van Genuchten, M. Th. (1999). Manual of HYDRUS-2D computer program for simulation of water flow head and solute transport in variably saturated porous media, USDA, Calif.
Simunek, J., van Genuchten, M. Th., and Sejna, M., (2005). “The Hydrus-1D software package for simulating the one-dimensional movement of water, heat, and multiple solutes in variably-saturated media, Version 3.0.” Manual of HYDRUS Software Series 1, Department of Environmental Sciences, Univ. California Riverside, Riverside, Calif.
Sophocleous, M. (1985). “The role of specific yield in groundwater recharge estimation: A numerical study.” Ground Water, 23(1), 52–58.
Todd, D. K. (1959). Groundwater hydrology, Wiley, New York.
Troch, P., De Troch, F., and Brutsaert, W. (1993). “Effective water table depth to describe initial conditions prior to storm rainfall in humid regions.” Water Resour. Res., 29, 427–434.
Trout, K., and Ross, M. (2004). “Intensive hydrologic data collection in as small watershed in West-Central Florida.” Hydrol. Sci. Technol., 21(1–4), 187–197.
van Genuchten, M. (1980). “A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 44, 892–898.
White, W. N. (1932). “A method of estimating ground-water supplies based on discharge by plants and evaporation from soil: Results of investigation in Escalante Valley, Utah.” Geological Survey Water-Supply Paper 659-A, United States Department of the Interior, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 14 • Issue 12 • December 2009
Pages: 1290 - 1298
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Jul 2, 2007
Accepted: Mar 25, 2009
Published online: Mar 27, 2009
Published in print: Dec 2009
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.