Estimation of Unsaturated Hydraulic Parameters from Infiltration and Internal Drainage Experiments
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 11
Abstract
Inverse problem of determining unsaturated soil hydraulic properties from transient infiltration and internal drainage events are analyzed. Hydraulic properties are assumed to be described by van Genuchten’s relationships. The inverse problem is solved using Levenberg-Marquardt method while the forward problem is solved using a mass conservative finite difference numerical scheme. The bias induced by different objective functions on the parameter estimates with error free and noisy data are analyzed. Field experiments are conducted at two sites to compare the parameter estimates obtained from the infiltration and internal drainage tests. The results indicate that some objective functions induce undue bias in the estimated parameters in the presence of noise in the data and as such selecting a suitable objective function should be given due importance in the parameter estimation. The comparison of the parameter estimates from infiltration and internal drainage experiments at two sites indicates that the parameter estimates are close to each other. It is concluded that infiltration experiment, which is simpler and of short duration can be an alternative to internal drainage experiment for estimating the unsaturated soil parameters.
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Published In
Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 11 • November 2010
Pages: 766 - 773
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Jan 1, 2009
Accepted: Feb 17, 2010
Published online: Feb 19, 2010
Published in print: Nov 2010
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