254 INFILTRATION
Lepsch IF, Buol SW, and Daniels RB (1977) Soil-landscape
relationships in Occidental Plateau of Sao Paulo
State, Brazil: I. Geomorphic surfaces and soil mapping
units. Soil Science Society of America Journal 41:
104–109.
Lepsch IF, Buol SW, and Daniels RB (1977) Soil-landscape
relationships in Occidental Plateau of Sao Paulo State,
Brazil: II. Soil morphology, genesis, and classification.
Soil Science Society of America Journal 41: 109–115.
McCracken RJ, Shanks RE, and Clebsch EEB (1962) Soil
morphology and genesis at higher elevations of the Great
Smokey Mountains. Soil Society of America Proceedings
26: 384–388.
McFadgen BG (1980) Maori plaggen soils of New Zealand,
their origin and properties. Journal of the Royal Society
of New Zealand 10: 3–19.
Molloy L (1998) Soils in the New Zealand Landscape: The
Living Mantle. Lincoln: New Zealand Society of Soil
Science.
Pape JC (1970) Plaggen soils in the Netherlands. Geoderma
4: 229–255.
Phillips DH, Foss JE, Stiles CA, Trettin CC, and Luxmoore
RJ (2001) Soil–landscape relationships at the lower
reaches of a watershed at Bear Creek: near Oak Ridge
Tennessee. Catena 44: 205–222.
Pillans B, McGlone M, Palmer AS, Mildenhall D, Alloway
BV, and Berger G (1993) The last Glacial maximum in
Industrial Pollution See Pollution: Industrial
INFILTRATION
T P A Ferré and A W Warrick, University of Arizona,
Tucson, AZ, USA
ß 2005, Elsevier Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Introduction
Infiltration is defined as the flow of water from
aboveground into the subsurface. The topic of infil-
tration has received a great deal of attention because
of its importance to topics as widely ranging as irriga-
tion, contaminant transport, groundwater recharge,
and ecosystem viability. More generally, a quantita-
tive understanding of this process is vital to our
ability to relate surface and subsurface processes in
describing the hydrologic cycle.
central and southern North Island, New Zealand: a
paleoenvironmental reconstruction using the Kawakawa
Tephra Formation as a chronostratigraphic marker.
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
101: 283–304.
Ruhe RV and Olson CG (1980) Clay-mineralogy indicators
of glacial and non-glacial sources of Wisconsinan loesses
in southern Indiana. Geoderma 24: 283–297.
Soil Survey Staff (1975) Soil Taxonomy: A Basic System
of Soil Classification for Making and Interpreting
Soil Surveys. Agriculture Handbook. United States De-
partment of Agriculture. Washington: US Government
Printing Office.
Soil Survey Staff (1999) Soil Taxonomy: A Basic System of
Soil Classification for Making and Interpreting Soil
Surveys, 2nd ed. Agriculture Handbook 436. United
States Department of Agriculture. Washington: US
Government Printing Office.
Ugolini FC and Schlichte AK (1973) The effect of Holocene
environmental changes on selected western Washington
soils. Soil Science 116: 218–227.
Viereck LA, Dyrness CT, Cleve K, and van Foote MJ (1983)
Vegetation, soils, and forest productivity in selected
forest types in interior Alaska. Canadian Journal of
Forest Research 13: 703–720.
Yaalon DH (1997) Soils in the Mediterranean region: what
makes them different? Catena 28: 157–169.
While the definition of infiltration is simple, it
can involve all aspects of flow through a variably
saturated porous medium, ranging in complexity
from steady-state, saturated flow in a homogeneous,
isotropic medium to transient, unstable, unsatur-
ated flow through an anisotropic, heterogeneous
medium. The rate and pattern of infiltration vary
with the distribution and rate with which water
is supplied at the ground surface, the depth of
the water table, the hydraulic properties of the
subsurface materials, and the antecedent moisture
content distribution. The following discussion
focuses on infiltration into a homogeneous, isotropic
medium as a basis for understanding the infiltration
process.

Plug Flow
Constant Infiltration at the Ground Surface
In its simplest form, infiltration can be visualized as a
one-dimensional, downward displacement process.
Water application at the ground surface can be con-
sidered in two general ways. The simplest ground-
surface boundary condition to envision, physically,
is the application of water at a constant rate, such as
infiltration during a constant-intensity rainfall. This
is known as a type II, Neumann boundary condition.
A type I, Dirichlet boundary condition, describes
the application of water at a constant pressure head
(or water content).
For simplicity, we begin by considering water sup-
plied at a constant rate at the ground surface (type II
ground-surface boundary condition). This rate can be
defined as a flux density, with units of length per time,
and is equivalent to the flow of water (volume per
time) over an area. If the rate of supply is greater than
the saturated hydraulic conductivity of the medium,
water will eventually pond at the ground surface and
flow overland. If the rate of water delivery is lower
than the saturated hydraulic conductivity, all of the
water will infiltrate. If the spatial area over which
water is supplied is relatively large, infiltration can
be approximated as one-dimensional downward. The
water content of the medium will increase until the
hydraulic conductivity of the medium at that water
content is equal to the rate of water supply and infil-
tration will proceed under a unit gradient condition
(i.e., the magnitude of the hydraulic head gradient is
1). As water is continually supplied, this wetted
region will advance downward. Assuming that the
water velocity in front of the advancing water is
nearly zero, which is reasonable unless the antecedent
water content is quite high, the added water will
advance as a sharp wetting front. The depth to the
wetting front, zf, after a time t, can be determined
from the antecedent volumetric water content,
i, the
water content behind the wetting front,
wet, and the
flux density, q, by a simple mass balance calculation:
qt
zf ¼ ½1

wet 
i
The rate of advance of the wetting front, vf, can be
determined as the derivative of zf with time:
q
vf ¼ ½2

wet 
i
Notice that if the initial water content and the water
content behind the wetting front are constant with
depth and, given that the applied flux is constant in
time, the velocity of the wetting front is constant with
INFILTRATION 255
time. The rate of advance of the wetting front in-
creases with an increase in the flux or the anteced-
ent water content and with a decrease in the water
content behind the wetting front.
As a first approximation, infiltrating water is gen-
erally assumed to displace the antecedent resident
pore water completely. For example, consider that
the water that is present in the medium before infil-
tration begins is dyed blue and that the infiltrating
water is dyed red. There is a transition from a higher
water content to a lower water content at a depth of
zf; but the water on either side of the wetting front is
blue. At the same time, t, there is a transition from red
water to blue water at a depth, z0f , that is equal to:
qt
z0f ¼ ½3

wet
The rate of advance of the applied water front, v0f , is:
q
v0f ¼ ½4

wet
Notice that if the water content behind the wetting
front is constant with depth and the applied flux is
constant in time, the velocity of the wetting front is
also constant with time. The rate of advance of the
applied water is independent of the antecedent water
content. This simple representation of infiltration can
be extended to consider flow through a layered sub-
surface in which each layer can have a different value
for
i and
wet.
Constant Pressure Head at the Ground Surface
Now we consider the advance of a wetting front in
response to a type I ground-surface boundary condi-
tion. As shown above, the velocity of the wetting
front can be expressed as:
dzf q
¼ vf ¼ ½5
dt
wet 
i
To consider the case of the advance of the wetting
front in response to a constant pressure head applied
at the ground surface, 0, the pressure head at the
wetting front is defined as f. Then the flux across the
ground surface is:
  zf
f 0
q ¼ Kwet ½6
zf
where Kwet is the hydraulic conductivity of the
medium behind the wetting front. Substituting for
the flux gives:
dzf  0  zf
vf ¼ ¼ Kwet f ½7
dt zf ð
wet 
i Þ
256 INFILTRATION
Integrating this expression gives an expression for
the time, t, for the wetting front to advance to a
depth zf as:
  
ð
wet 
i Þ zf
t¼ zf þ ð f  0 Þln 1 þ ½8
Kwet 0 f
Green and Ampt derived a similar expression. For
short times, gravity can be ignored and the results
simplify to:
 
2ð 0  f ÞKwet 0:5 0:5
zf ¼ t ½9

wet 
i
The rate of advance of the wetting front at time t is
described as the derivative of zf with t:
 
2ð 0  f ÞKwet 0:5 0:5
vf ¼ 0:5 t ½10

wet 
i
Notice that, unlike the advance of a wetting front in
response to a constant applied flux, the rate of ad-
vance of the wetting front in response to a type I
ground-surface boundary condition changes with
time. The rate of advance of the wetting front is
highest initially when the distance from the surface
to the wetting front is smallest, leading to the highest
pressure-head gradient. This indicates that the rate of
infiltration at the ground surface is highest at early
times. At long times, gravity dominates infiltration
and the infiltration rate at the ground surface de-
creases to a constant rate, q. As a result, at later
times, the rate of advance of the wetting front de-
creases to q/(
wet 
i). That is, for larger times the
wetting front in response to a type I ground-surface
boundary condition advances at the same rate as
a wetting front in response to a type II boundary
condition with an equivalent applied flux.
Richards Equation – The Shape of the
Wetting Front
The preceding treatments are sufficient to provide
simplified descriptions of the one-dimensional ad-
vance of a wetting front into a homogeneous, drained
soil under time-invariant boundary conditions. How-
ever, both of these analyses are based on the assump-
tion of a step change in water content at the wetting
front. A more complete, detailed description of the
infiltration process requires solution of the flow equa-
tion, including constitutive relationships describing
the water content–pressure head relationship for the
soils into which water is infiltrating.
In general, the Richards equation is a nonlinear,
parabolic partial differential equation that describes
water movement through a variably saturated
medium under the assumption of zero air resistance.
The equation and the accompanying constitutive re-
lationships can be written in many forms. For
example, the mixed form describing one-dimensional
downward water flow based on the water content,

, and pressure head, , is:
  
@
@ @
¼ Kð
Þ þ1 ½11
@t @z @z
In the preceding examples, the change in the volu-
metric water content was abrupt, taking one of two
values,
wet or
i. In reality, the water content can
assume any value between the residual water content
and the porosity; the water content is a function of the
capillary pressure and the antecedent conditions (hys-
teresis). If the water content varies smoothly across
the wetting front, then the hydraulic conductivity will
also take a continuous range of values. The nature of
the dependence of the hydraulic conductivity on the
water content controls the deviation of the shape of
the wetting front from the idealized sharp boundary
assumed above.
The following sections show examples of the infil-
tration process calculated using HYDRUS-2D, one of
several available numerical models that solve the
Richards equation for a range of boundary conditions
and soil properties. The hydraulic properties for silt
and sand were taken from the soil catalogue available
through ROSETTA, which is included in HYDRUS-
2D. These cases have been chosen to illustrate the
influences of soil properties and water application
rates on infiltration.
The Advance of a Wetting Front
For one-dimensional infiltration into a soil profile
overlying a deep water table in response to a constant
applied flux at the ground surface, the water content
and the water pressure at the ground surface increase
from their initial values to constant, higher values.
These values are equal to the water content and pres-
sure head at which the hydraulic conductivity of the
soil equals the infiltration rate. The wetting front
remains sharp because the hydraulic conductivity of
the relatively dry medium below the wetting front is
much lower than the hydraulic conductivity above the
wetting front (solid lines in Figure 1a). As a result,
a large gradient is needed across the wetting front to
drive water into the soil. The pressure heads corre-
spond, having the general shape of the solid lines in
Figure 1b. The exact corresponding values of pressure
head and water contents will depend on the soil-water
characteristic curve, i.e., the relationship of
to .
For one-dimensional infiltration into a soil profile
overlying a deep water table in response to a constant,

increased pressure head at the ground surface, the
water content and the water pressure at the ground-
surface increase from their initial values to constant,
higher values. For comparison, consider a ground
surface boundary condition that corresponds with
the constant infiltration rate applied in creating
Figure 1. As for a type II ground-surface boundary
condition, the wetting front remains sharp because
the hydraulic conductivity of the relatively dry
medium below the wetting front is much lower than
the hydraulic conductivity above the wetting front
(dashed lines in Figure 1a). As a result, a large gradi-
ent is needed across the wetting front to drive water
into the soil. The pressure heads correspond, having
the general shape of the dashed lines in Figure 1b. The
exact corresponding values of pressure head and
water contents depend on the soil-water characteris-
tic curve, i.e., the relationship of
to . Notice that
the wetting front has advanced to a greater depth at
any given time for the constant pressure head ground-
surface boundary condition than for the correspond-
ing constant flux boundary condition. This is due to
an early high pressure head gradient, leading to
high initial fluxes under the constant-head boundary
Figure 1 (a) Water-content and (b) pressure-head profiles after
3.3, 6.7, 10, 13.3, and 16.7 h of infiltration into a drained sand
(100-cm pressure head throughout). Solid lines show the
response to a type II ground-surface boundary condition with a
constant applied flux of 0.0005 cm s1. Dashed lines show the
response to a type I ground-surface boundary condition with a
constant applied pressure head of 8.08 cm.
INFILTRATION 257
condition. At late times, the wetting front advances at
the same rate for both boundary conditions, leading
to a constant distance between the solid and dashed
lines on Figure 1.
The Effects of Infiltration Rate
For simplicity, the remaining examples will only con-
sider infiltration in response to a constant applied
flux. For these conditions, for a given soil, the water
content behind the wetting front increases with in-
creases in the rate of infiltration until full saturation is
reached. The wetting front velocity has been shown
(above) to advance at a rate that is proportional to the
applied flux and inversely proportional to the water
content behind the wetting front. The rate of advance
of the wetting front increases with higher rates of
water application. However, note that the difference
in water pressure at the surface (Figure 2b) is small
compared with the difference in water contents
(Figure 2a) for the range of water application rates
chosen.
Figure 2 (a) Water-content and (b) pressure-head profiles after
10 h of infiltration into a drained sand at rates of 0.001, 0.0005, or
0.0001 cm s1.
258 INFILTRATION

The Effects of the Antecedent

Water Content
As infiltration progresses, the downward-moving
water continually displaces preexisting pore water
and fills drained pores. For a sufficiently long profile
that has no flow across the bottom boundary, the
total volume of water added is equal to the total
change in water stored in the profile. If the antecedent
water content is high, the change in storage per unit
length is small (Figure 3). As a result, the wetting
front will progress deeper for a given total volume
of added water.

Figure 4 Water-content profiles after 10 h of infiltration at a rate

The Effects of the Saturated of 0.0005 cm s1 into a sand with a saturated hydraulic conductiv-
Hydraulic Conductivity ity of 0.00086, 0.0086, or 0.086 cm s1 and an initial pressure head
of 100 cm.
If one medium has a higher saturated hydraulic con-
ductivity than another and all other hydraulic proper-
ties are the same, then the first soil is able to transmit
a given flux at a lower water content than the second
soil (Figure 4). As a result, for a given rate of water
application, the water content behind the wetting
front is lower for the first, more conductive soil. To
accommodate the same total change in water storage
throughout the profile in response to a given volume
of applied water, the wetting front moves deeper in
the more conductive soil.

The Effects of Soil Texture

The texture of a soil strongly influences its hydraulic
properties. For example, at low pressure heads, a fine-
textured material tends to have a higher water
content than a more coarse material. As a result, the
antecedent water content may be higher in a silt or
clay than in a sand. This can lead to a fine-textured
soil having a higher hydraulic conductivity and a
Figure 5 Water-content profiles after 44.4 h of infiltration at a
rate of 0.000015 cm s1 into a sand, silt, or clay at an initial
pressure head of 100 cm.
lower storage capacity than a coarse-textured soil
for the same initial pressure head (Figure 5). At higher
water contents, a coarse soil has a higher hydraulic
conductivity than a fine soil. Therefore, at a given rate
of water application, the water content behind the
wetting front is lower for a sand than for a silt or
clay. The balance of these effects for a given rate of
water application and for given initial conditions de-
termines the relative rate of advance of a wetting
front through any two soils.

The Effects of Gravity

Figure 3 Water-content profiles after 10 h of infiltration at a rate
of 0.0005 cm s1 into a sand with an initial pressure head of 15,
25, or 100 cm.
The preceding discussions have considered only
vertical infiltration. However, water can also move
horizontally across vertical soil surfaces (e.g., the
walls of a water-filled surface depression). All of the
influences described above for vertical flow have

the same effect on horizontal advance in response to
water applications controlled by the rate of applica-
tion at a soil surface. Definite differences arise when
water is applied at the soil surface at a constant
pressure head (type I boundary condition). In that
case, horizontal flow responds only to the pressure
gradients caused by the surface-water pressure head,
while vertical flow responds to this gradient and to
gravity. After a short time, when the pressure-head
gradient is high across the surface, the rates of hori-
zontal and vertical flow are nearly equal. However,
later the pressure-head gradient approaches zero
while the gravitational gradient is always 1. As a
result, horizontal flow decreases toward zero while
vertical flow reaches a steady nonzero rate. This dif-
ference in the horizontal and vertical flow in response
to the same applied pressure-head is critical to an
understanding of multidimensional infiltration.
Two-Dimensional Infiltration
The preceding discussions have focused on one-
dimensional, vertical infiltration. While this simpli-
fied representation is applicable to many common
conditions (e.g., rainfall or sprinkler irrigation over
a flat field), other conditions require a consideration
of multidimensional flow. Multidimensional flow can
be understood as a balance between horizontal and
vertical flow. For instance, a wetting front will pro-
ceed farther downward if flow is one-dimensional
vertical, than if flow is multidimensional, because in
the latter case the amount of water moving vertically
downward will be less as a result of water ‘lost’ to
horizontal flow. Figure 6 shows the water-content
Figure 6 Water-content profiles after 44.4 h of infiltration at a
rate of 0.000 015 cm s1 into a sand, silt, or clay at an initial
pressure head of 100 cm. Dashed lines show the response
calculated for one-dimensional flow. Solid lines show the re-
sponse directly beneath the point of water application when
flow is two-dimensional.
INFILTRATION 259
profiles beneath a point of constant infiltration
for both one-dimensional (solid lines) and two-
dimensional (dashed lines) flow regimes. Regardless
of the soil texture, the wetting front moves deeper
under one-dimensional flow conditions. This differ-
ence is more pronounced for the finer-textured soils,
because their relatively low hydraulic conductivities
preclude rapid, downward flow. As a result, the
effects of gravity are minimized, and horizontal and
vertical flow diverge less slowly. A measure of the
effects of horizontal flow on the downward advance
of the wetting front can be determined from the total
change in water storage directly beneath the point of
water application for one- and two-dimensional simu-
lations. For the examples shown in Figure 6, the
change in storage directly beneath the point of water
application for the sand undergoing two-dimensional
flow is 74% of that for the one-dimensional case; the
silt and clay show 51% and 32%, respectively. This
emphasizes the relatively large impact of horizontal
flow on finer-grained, less-permeable media.
There is a further difference between one-
dimensional and multidimensional flow. If flow is
one-dimensional, the wetting front continues to ad-
vance downward as long as water is applied at the
ground surface. Specifically, because the water con-
tent behind the wetting front is nearly constant, the
flux across the wetting front is equal to the flux across
the ground surface. The wetted region can be seen to
advance due to this flux across the wetting front,
which results in water filling pores that were previ-
ously filled with air. In contrast, under multidimen-
sional flow, the wetted region continues to expand
in multiple directions. As a result, the surface area of
the wetted region continues to increase. The area
of the surface bounding the wetted region increases
in direct proportion to the flux across the boundary of
the wetted region. As a result, at long times, the area
of the boundary of the wetted region becomes so large
that the flux across the boundary approaches zero at
every location and the size of the wetted region be-
comes essentially constant in time. This gives the
unusual result that there can be a constant water
content distribution with both depth and time at
long times during multidimensional infiltration.
Further Considerations
The preceding discussions have been limited to in-
filtration into a homogeneous, isotropic porous
medium overlying a deep water table. Infiltration
in the presence of a shallow water table obeys the
same general principles of Darcy’s law and the
Richards equation. When a shallow water table is
present, the moisture profiles (and pressure profiles)
260 IRON NUTRITION
must merge vertically with the saturated profile
and capillary fringe. More complex aspects of infil-
tration arise due to the effects of horizontal and sub-
horizontal layering, capillary barriers, preferential
flow, unstable finger-flow, anisotropy, dual porosity,
changes in hydraulic properties due to clogging
with time, and the effects of air resistance during
infiltration.
See also: Compaction; Crusts: Structural;
Hydrodynamics in Soils; Water Cycle
Further Reading
Green WH and Ampt GA (1911) Studies on soil physics.
I. Flow of air and water through soils. Journal of
Agricultural Science 4: 1–24.
Hillel D (1998) Environmental Soil Physics. New York:
Academic Press.
Infrared Spectroscopy See Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
IRON NUTRITION
K Mengel and H Kosegarten, Justus Liebig
University, Giessen, Germany
ß 2005, Elsevier Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Introduction
Iron (Fe) is an indispensable element for all living
organisms, in which it is present in many enzymes.
Some of the most important enzymic reactions depend
on changes between the divalent and trivalent Fe
forms to enable the transfer of electrons as occurs in
the respiratory and photosynthetic electron (e) trans-
port chains. Fe taken up from the soil by plants is for
many animal species the exclusive nutritional source
of Fe, and in vegetables and fruits it is also of high
importance in the human diet. Apart from organic
soils containing virtually no inorganic soil matter, Fe
is present in soils in abundant quantities. Its availabil-
ity to plants, however, depends much on ecologic
conditions. In aerobic soils its concentration in the
soil solution is extremely low and decreases with an
increase in soil pH. Of a still higher importance for Fe
Jury WA, Gardner WR, and Gardner WH (1991) Soil
Physics, 5th edn. New York: John Wiley.
Philip JR (1969) Theory of infiltration. Advances in
Hydroscience 5: 215–305.
Richards LA (1931) Capillary conduction of liquid through
porous media. Physics 1: 318–333.
Schaap MG, Leij FJ, and van Genuchten MT (2001)
ROSETTA: a computer program for estimating soil
hydraulic parameters with hierarchical pedotransfer
functions. Journal of Hydrology 251: 163–176.
Simunek J, Šejna M, and van Genuchten MT (1999) The
HYDRUS-2D software package for simulating two-
dimensional movement of water, heat, and multiple
solutes in variably saturated media. Version 2.0,
IGWMC-TPS-53. International Ground Water Modeling
Center. Golden, CO: Colorado School of Mines.
Smith RW (2002) Infiltration Theory for Hydrologic Appli-
cations. Water Resources Monograph 15. Washington,
DC: American Geophysical Union.
Warrick AW (2003) Soil Water Dynamics. New York:
Oxford University Press.
availability to plant roots is the soil microbial activity
by which siderophores are produced which dissolve
mineral Fe. Under anaerobic soil conditions, mineral
Fe(iii) is reduced and the Fe2þ produced is soluble and
may attain toxic concentrations under soil flooding.
Fe nutrition of crops may be insufficient in calcareous
and alkaline soils caused by an inhibition of Fe(iii)
reduction in the root apoplast. Iron deficiency affects
crop growth and quality.
Iron in the Soil and its Acquisition
by Plants
Of all the chemical elements composing the Earth’s
crust, Fe is present fourth-highest by weight, with
mean concentration of approximately 50 mg kg1.
The greatest part of soil Fe occurs in the crystal lattices
of numerous primary soil minerals. In 2:1 phyllosili-
cates such as mica, smectite, and illite, it is located in
the center of the octahedra in divalent and trivalent
form, depending on the redox conditions of the soil.
Weathering of these primary Fe-containing minerals