An efficient and guaranteed stable numerical method for continuous modeling of infiltration and redistribution with a shallow dynamic water table

Autor: Wencong Lai, Cary A. Talbot, R. C. Steinke, Fred L. Ogden
Rok vydání: 2015
Předmět:
Zdroj: Water Resources Research. 51:1514-1528
ISSN: 0043-1397
DOI: 10.1002/2014wr016487
Popis: We have developed a one-dimensional numerical method to simulate infiltration and redistribution in the presence of a shallow dynamic water table. This method builds upon the Green-Ampt infiltration with Redistribution (GAR) model and incorporates features from the Talbot-Ogden (T-O) infiltration and redistribution method in a discretized moisture content domain. The redistribution scheme is more physically meaningful than the capillary weighted redistribution scheme in the T-O method. Groundwater dynamics are considered in this new method instead of hydrostatic groundwater front. It is also computationally more efficient than the T-O method. Motion of water in the vadose zone due to infiltration, redistribution, and interactions with capillary groundwater are described by ordinary differential equations. Numerical solutions to these equations are computationally less expensive than solutions of the highly nonlinear Richards' (1931) partial differential equation. We present results from numerical tests on 11 soil types using multiple rain pulses with different boundary conditions, with and without a shallow water table and compare against the numerical solution of Richards' equation (RE). Results from the new method are in satisfactory agreement with RE solutions in term of ponding time, deponding time, infiltration rate, and cumulative infiltrated depth. The new method, which we call “GARTO” can be used as an alternative to the RE for 1-D coupled surface and groundwater models in general situations with homogeneous soils with dynamic water table. The GARTO method represents a significant advance in simulating groundwater surface water interactions because it very closely matches the RE solution while being computationally efficient, with guaranteed mass conservation, and no stability limitations that can affect RE solvers in the case of a near-surface water table.
Databáze: OpenAIRE