Modeling Infiltration and Runoff with Surface Crust under Unsteady Rainfalls
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 23, Issue 7
Abstract
This study develops a new analytical model to simulate the infiltration and runoff with a crust surface. The new model consists of two parts: (1) an infiltration capacity model using a linear rate-moisture relation (RMR) similar to the flux-concentration relation (FCR) for homogeneous soil, but considering the changing saturation over time at the interface and unsaturated flow in the subsoil layer; and (2) an infiltration and runoff model under rainfall events based on the time compression approximation (TCA) using the developed infiltration capacity in part (1). Its performance is evaluated by comparing to the solutions of the Richards equation and two field experiments under different rainfall patterns. Results show that the new model can well predict the infiltration capacity and wetting front profiles with slight underestimation of infiltration. The modeled runoff closely agrees with field measurements. The new model extends the FCR and TCA with the prediction of unsaturated flow. The model can use any form of soil hydraulic model and is computationally stable without numerically solving the Richards equation, which facilitates large-scale predictions of the rainfall-runoff process.
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Acknowledgments
This research was mainly supported by the Engineering Initiative program at the University of Wyoming. This work was also partially supported by the Wyoming Center for Environmental Hydrology and Geophysics (WyCEHG) EPSCoR RII Track-1 Project, funded by NSF EPS-1208909.
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 23 • Issue 7 • July 2018
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 22, 2017
Accepted: Jan 15, 2018
Published online: Apr 28, 2018
Published in print: Jul 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Sep 28, 2018
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