Storm-Water Infiltration and Focused Recharge Modeling with Finite-Volume Two-Dimensional Richards Equation: Application to an Experimental Rain Garden
Publication: Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 12
Abstract
Rain gardens are infiltration systems that provide volume and water quality control, recharge enhancement, as well as landscape, ecological, and economic benefits. A model for application to rain gardens based on Richards equation coupled to a surface water balance was developed, using a two-dimensional finite-volume code. It allows for alternating upper boundary conditions, including ponding and overflow, and can simulate heterogeneous soil-layering or more complex geometries to estimate infiltration and recharge. The algorithm is conservative, and exhibits good performance compared to standard models for several test cases (less than 0.1% absolute mass balance error); simulations were also performed for an experimental rain garden and comparisons to collected data are presented. The model accurately simulated the matrix flow, soil water distribution, as well as deep percolation (potential recharge) for a natural rainfall event in the controlled experimental setup.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
Funding has been provided by FONDECYT through Grant No. UNSPECIFIED1050668, Fundación Andes (Grant No. UNSPECIFIEDC-13960/20), and by P. Universidad Católica: DIPUC and Dept. Ingeniería Hidráulica y Ambiental funding. We thank support and advice by R. Cienfuegos, C. Escauriaza, J. F. Muñoz, P. Pastén, B. Fernández, M. Durán (Engineering); J.A. Alcalde, J. Gastó (Agronomy); and the local IAHR Student Chapter. Special thanks to the many people that helped in the experimental setup, too many names to mention in this brief paper. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers for the helpful comments that improved the readability of this paper.
References
Alley, W. M., Healy, R. W., Labaugh, J. W. Y., and Reilly, T. E. (2002). “Flow and storage in groundwater systems.” Science, 2965575, 1985–1990.
Aravena, J. E. (2006). “Bi-dimensional modeling with finite-volume approach for the hydrologic simulation of rain gardens for stormwater management.” MS thesis, Universidad Católica, Chile (in Spanish).
Celia, M. A., Boulatas, E. T., and Zarba, R. L. (1990). “A general mass-conservative numerical solution for the unsaturated flow equation.” Water Resour. Res., 27(7), 1483–1496.
Dussaillant, A. R. (2002). “Focused groundwater recharge in a rain garden: Numerical Modeling and field experiment.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wis.
Dussaillant, A. R., Cuevas, A., and Potter, K. W. (2005a). “Rain gardens for stormwater infiltration and focused groundwater recharge: Simulations for different climates.” Water Sci. Technol.: Water Supply, 5(3–4), 173–179.
Dussaillant, A. R., Wu, C. H., and Potter, K. W. (2004). “Richards equation model of a rain garden.” J. Hydrol. Eng, 9(3), 219–225.
Dussaillant, A. R., Wu, C. H., and Potter, K. W. (2005b). “Infiltración de agua lluvia en celdas de bioinfiltración: Modelo numérico y experimento en terreno.” Ingeniería Hidráulica en México, 10(2), 5–17 (in Spanish).
Farthing, M. W., Kees, C. E., and Miller, C. T. (2003). “Mixed finite element methods and higher order temporal approximations for variably saturated groundwater flow.” Adv. Water Resour., 26(, 373–394.
Fayer, M. (2000). UNSAT-H version 3.0: Unsaturated soil water and heat flow model, theory, user manual, and examples, Batelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Hanford, Wash.
Ferguson, B. K. (1990). “Role of the long-term water-balance in management of stormwater infiltration.” J. Environ. Manage., 30(3), 221–233.
Fischer, D., Charles, E. G. Y., and Baehr, A. L. (2003). “Effects of stormwater infiltration on quality of groundwater beneath retention and detention basins.” J. Environ. Eng., 129(5), 464–471.
Huhn, V. Y., and Stecker, A. (1997). “Alternative stormwater management concept for urban and suburban areas.” Water Sci. Technol., 36(8–9), 295–300.
Kavetski, D., Binning, P., and Sloan, S. W. (2001). “Adaptive time stepping and error control in a mass conservative numerical solution of the mixed form of Richards equation.” Adv. Water Resour., 24(6), 595–605.
Lee, H. S., Matthews, C. J., Braddock, R. D., Sander, G. C., and Gandola, F. (2004). “A MATLAB method of lines template for transport equations.” Environ. Modell. Software, 19, (6), 606–614.
Manzini, G., and Ferraris, S. (2004). “Mass-conservative finite volume methods on 2-D unstructured grids for the Richards' equation.” Adv. Water Resour., 27(12), 1199–1215.
Miller, C. T., Abhishek, C., and Farthing, M. W. (2006). “A spatially and temporally adaptive solution of Richards equation.” Adv. Water Resour., 29(4), 525–545.
Miller, C. T., Williams, G. A., Kelley, C. T., and Tocci, M. D. (1998). “Robust solutions of Richards’ equation for nonuniform porous media.” Water Resour. Res., 34(10), 2599–2610.
Mualem, Y. (1976). “A new model for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated porous media.” Water Resour. Res., 12(3), 513–522.
Numerical Recipes. (1992). Numerical recipes for Fortran 77: The art of scientific computing, 2nd Ed., Vol. 1, Cambridge Univ. Press, New York, 79–82.
Pachepsky, Y. A., Timlin, D. J., and Rawls, W. J. (2003). “Generalized Richards' equation to simulate water transport in unsaturated soils.” J. Hydrol., 279(1–4), 290–290.
Pan, L., and Wierenga, P. J. (1995). “A transformed pressure head-based approach to solve Richards' equation for variably saturated soils.” Water Resour. Res., 31(4), 925–931.
Richards, L. A. (1931). “Capillary conduction of liquids through porous medium.” Physics, 1, 318–333.
Roth, K. (2008). “Scaling of water flow through porous media and soil.” Eur. J. Soil Sci., 59(1), 125–130.
Šimunek, J., and Šejna, M. Y., and Van Genuchten, M. T. (1999). Hydrus-2D: Simulating water flow and solute transport in two-dimensional variably saturated media, U.S. Salinity Laboratory Agricultural Research Service, Riverside, Calif.
Tocci, M. D., Kelley, C. T., Miller, C. T., and Kees, C. E. (1998). “Inexact Newton methods and the method of lines for solving Richards' equation in two space dimensions.” Computat. Geosci., 2(4), 291–309.
van Dam, J. C., and Feddes, R. A. (2000). “Numerical simulation of infiltration, evaporation and shallow groundwater levels with the Richards equation.” J. Hydrol., 233(1–4), 72–85.
van Genuchten, M. T. (1980). “A closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils.” Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J., 44, 892–898.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydraulic Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 12 • December 2009
Pages: 1073 - 1080
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Apr 17, 2008
Accepted: Jun 9, 2009
Published online: Jun 10, 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.