Journal of Hydrology 552 (2017) 241–248

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Hydrology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhydrol

Research papers

Method to measure soil matrix infiltration in forest soil

Jing Zhang a, Tingwu Lei a,b,⇑, Liqin Qu c, Ping Chen a, Xiaofeng Gao a, Chao Chen a, Lili Yuan a,
Manliang Zhang d, Guangxu Su d
a
College of Water Resources & Civil Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, PR China
b
State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, CAS and MWR, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, PR China
c
State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100048, PR China
d
Tianshui Soil and Water Conservation Station, Yellow River Conservation Commission, Tianshui, Gansu Province 741000, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Infiltration of water into forest soil commonly involves infiltration through the matrix body and prefer-
Received 13 November 2016 ential passages. Determining the matrix infiltration process is important in partitioning water infiltrating
Received in revised form 15 April 2017 into the soil through the soil body and macropores to evaluate the effects of soil and water conservation
Accepted 17 June 2017
practices on hillslope hydrology and watershed sedimentation. A new method that employs a double-
Available online 20 June 2017
This manuscript was handled by K.
ring infiltrometer was applied in this study to determine the matrix infiltration process in forest soil.
Georgakakos, Editor-in-Chief, with the Field experiments were conducted in a forest field on the Loess Plateau at Tianshui Soil and Water
assistance of Venkat Lakshmi, Associate Conservation Experimental Station. Nylon cloth was placed on the soil surface in the inner ring and
Editor between the inner and outer rings of infiltrometers. A thin layer of fine sands were placed onto the nylon
cloth to shelter the macropores and ensure that water infiltrates the soil through the matrix only. Brilliant
Keywords: Blue tracers were applied to examine the exclusion of preferential flow occurrences in the measured soil
Forest soil body. The infiltration process was measured, computed, and recorded through procedures similar to
Matrix infiltration those of conventional methods. Horizontal and vertical soil profiles were excavated to check the success
Double-ring infiltrometer of the experiment and ensure that preferential flow did not occur in the measured soil column and that
Preferential flow infiltration was only through the soil matrix. The infiltration processes of the replicates of five plots were
roughly the same, thereby indicating the feasibility of the methodology to measure soil matrix infiltra-
tion. The measured infiltration curves effectively explained the transient process of soil matrix infiltra-
tion. Philip and Kostiakov models fitted the measured data well, and all the coefficients of
determination were greater than 0.9. The wetted soil bodies through excavations did not present evi-
dence of preferential flow. Therefore, the proposed method can determine the infiltration process
through the forest soil matrix. This method can also be applied to explore matrix infiltration in other
land-use types.
Ó 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.

1. Introduction
Infiltration of water into forest soil involves soil matrix infiltra-
tion and preferential flow (Stumpp and Maloszewski, 2010; Wang
et al., 1994) because preferential flow commonly occurs in most
forest soils through macropores (Flury and Flühler, 1995;
Stagnitti et al., 1995; Jarvis, 2007). Matrix infiltration in forest soil
is related only to the process of water infiltration through the soil
body and is solely controlled by soil matrix capillary action. Deter-
mining matrix infiltration in forest soil is highly important in par-
titioning water infiltrating the soil matrix or going through
⇑ Corresponding author at: China Agricultural University, No. 17, Qinghua Donglu
Rd, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, PR China.
E-mail address: leitingwu@cau.edu.cn (T. Lei).
preferential passages. The water infiltrating through the soil matrix
determines the amount of water stored in the soil matrix which is
important to evaluate the effect of soil and water conservation
practices on hillslope hydrology and watershed sedimentation.
The water infiltrating the soil body is transformed into soil water
available for plant water uptake and vegetation restoration. Vege-
tation restoration can improve soil structure, control soil erosion,
and conserve soil water resources. The preferential flow induced
by macropores is the main cause of pollution transport and
groundwater circulation and contamination (Doerr et al., 2007;
Mooney and Morris, 2008).
The commonly used methods for soil infiltration measurement
include double-ring infiltrometers, rainfall simulator and disc
infiltrometer. A double-ring infiltrometer measures soil infiltration
under the ponding water layer, which commonly involves

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2017.06.032
0022-1694/Ó 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.
242 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Hydrology 552 (2017) 241–248
preferential flow. Jabro et al. (1994) used double-ring infiltrome-
ters to estimate the preferential movement by bromide tracer
under field conditions, to find that water evidently moved through
macropores to deep soil layers. In Sander and Gerke (2007) and
Kodešová et al.’s studies (2012), a rectangular frame was ham-
mered into soil before the tracer solution was poured into the infil-
tration plot under 5 cm ponding depth to evaluate the nature of the
preferential flow. The infiltration process measured by the rainfall
simulator also includes preferential flow. For example, Hardie et al.
(2011) applied a Morin rotating-disk rainfall simulator to spray
4 g L
1 Brilliant Blue solution to study the type, depth, and rate
of dye tracer movement into the soil profile. Double-ring infiltrom-
eters and rainfall simulators, when used in conventional ways, can-
not directly measure forest soil matrix infiltration. A disc
infiltrometer applies water to soil at negative water potentials pre-
viously determined by the operator, which causes water to infil-
trate through soil matrix. Given that water is driven by
capillarity force to enter the soil matrix body and the device works
under negative water potential, this infiltrometer can only mea-
sure unsaturated soil hydraulic parameters in situ (Logsdon and
Jaynes, 1993; Angulo-Jaramillo et al., 2000; Šimůnek and
Genuchten, 1996). To ensure good contact and level the soil sur-
face, a sand layer is typically used between the disc and soil sur-
face. The size and thickness of the sand used influence the water
flow through the sand layer and could cause random measurement
errors. Furthermore, a disc permeameter cannot measure the free
matrix infiltration process on soil surfaces under positive pressure
conditions. Even soil saturated hydraulic conductivity measure-
ment under ponded infiltration conditions is not guaranteed by
the disc method (Reynolds and Zebchuk, 1996; Reynolds and
Elrick, 1991).
Li and Ghodrati (1997) constructed soil columns with macrop-
ores of known shape and geometry in laboratory to visualize
matrix infiltration and preferential flow processes. Köhne and
Mohanty (2005) also designed a laboratorial soil column experi-
ment with artificial preferential flow paths. The laboratory experi-
ment, including drainage, upward, and downward infiltration
measurements, conducted by applying a tension infiltrometer to
quantify the preferential water flow processes. These studies relied
on advanced indoor measurement technologies and specially
designed devices, but did not directly relate to field conditions. A
soil column with macropores cannot easily imitate field conditions
and is not completely representative of field conditions. Under
field conditions, a lysimeter was used to partition water infiltration
through the soil matrix and through preferential passages based on
mass balance (Greve et al., 2010; Schoen et al., 1999; Stumpp and
Maloszewski, 2010). Everts and Kanwar (1990) used a lysimeter
and measured tracer concentrations and the flow rate of drainage
water to estimate the preferential and matrix flow components
of subsurface drainage. Stumpp and Maloszewski (2010) used
stable isotope contents, hydrological data, and a lysimeter to quan-
tify preferential and matrix flows by measuring the seepage water
of the lysimeter for five years. However, the installation of lysime-
ters is time consuming and can be expensive (Allaire et al., 2009). A
lysimeter cannot quantify the amount of water infiltrating through
the soil matrix before the soil matrix becomes saturated. Lysime-
ters are also inapplicable for the rapid measurement of the tran-
sient infiltration of soil matrix. No detailed study has reported on
the direct measurement method for the transient infiltration pro-
cess of soil matrix in field conditions.
Reynolds and Zebchuk (1996) suggested that a layer of suitable
contact materials should be placed between an infiltrometer disc
and the soil surface to establish and maintain good hydraulic con-
ductivity. Perroux and White (1988) reported that the hydraulic
conductivity of a contact material should be no less than that of
the measured soil. A layer of fine sand or sieved soil is widely used
as the contact material. For instance, in Kodešová et al.’s study
(2010), 1 mm layer of the same materials as the tested soil sieved
through a 2 mm mesh was lined between the soil surface and the
disk to ensure close contact of the disc with the surface soil.
The objectives of this study are to determine the soil matrix
infiltration process in forest soil under ponding conditions in the
field and examine the spatial variability of soil matrix infiltration
under the same land use pattern.
2. Theory
Preferential flow occurrence is related to the size and connec-
tivity of macropores to the soil surface (Wu et al., 2009). For
instance, Allaire-Leung et al. (2000a) reported that the wetting
front movements were similar to the control (treatment without
macropores), C–C (close at the soil surface and close at the lower
boundary), and C–O (close at the soil surface and open at the lower
boundary) treatments and found that preferential flows were com-
pletely sheltered when the top end of a macropore was closed,
such as in the cases of C–O and C–C macropores. Wang et al.
(2010) reported that the number of the macropores with radii lar-
ger than those 0.3 mm, especially larger than 1.5 mm, was the
most important one that caused the occurrence of preferential
flow. In Logsdon’s study (1995), when the diameter of soil pore
was 6 mm, the water flow in the soil pore was controlled com-
pletely by gravity, and preferential flow occurred. The results of
Sun’s (2013) showed that macropores with diameter larger than
0.7 mm were the preferred means of preferential flow. The fraction
of small capillary pores (pores of diameter <0.04 mm) represented
the soil matrix domain (Kodešová et al., 2012). If the macropores
are not connected to the soil surface to the open air or are shel-
tered, preferential flow does not occur. The lower soil layer with
macropores could have the same characteristics as those of the
matrix domain (Allaire et al., 2002). Therefore, the infiltration pro-
cess measured by rainfall simulation or with a double-ring infil-
trometer may only provide the soil matrix infiltration rate when
the macropores are disconnected to the open air at soil surface
or sheltered.
Therefore, in the current study, a 1–3 cm layer of fine sands
were spread on a nylon cloth on top of the measured soil surface
to shelter the macropores on the soil surface to ensure that water
infiltrates soil profile only through the matrix. The saturated
hydraulic conductivity of the used sand was 290.9 mm/h, as mea-
sured with the constant head method (Klute and Dirksen, 1986).
This value is greater than the saturated hydraulic conductivity of
the measured soil.
A coarse sand layer with high saturated hydraulic conductivity
covers a less conductive finer-textured soil layer. The infiltration
rate is initially controlled by the highly conductive top sand layer,
but when the wetting front reaches and penetrates into the finer-
textured sublaying soil, the infiltration rate is expected to drop to
approximately be equal to that of the soil. Thus, the soil layer with
lower conductivity than that of the sand layer controls the infiltra-
tion process (Hillel, 1998). Therefore, this arrangement can mea-
sure the soil infiltration through the matrix. Therefore, the 1–
3 cm depth of fine desert sand did not confine the soil matrix infil-
tration process in this study. Fine sand sheltered the connectivity
of macropores on the soil surface and did not affect the measured
soil matrix infiltration process (Fig. 1).
The area sheltered by sands on the top of a macropore may still
leak a certain amount of water flow (Fig. 1). The leaked water flow
has a very low rate, which may be affected by the surface tension of
the soil underneath the sand shelter and comes into contact with
the soil of the wells of the macropore. This causes the water to
return to the soil matrix to increase the soil matrix flow. In turn,
 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Hydrology 552 (2017) 241–248
Fig. 1. Schematic of the theoretic concept to measure matrix infiltration.
the increase in matrix flow underneath the surface can reduce
water infiltration into the matrix. To some extent, the matrix infil-
tration is rebalanced. Therefore, infiltration as a whole is well rep-
resented by the water flux through the sand layer and the
infiltration process measured by a double-ring infiltrometer with
good shelter of macropores should be capable of representing the
soil matrix infiltration capacity.
3. Methods and materials
3.1. Study area
The study area is located in Qiaozi East watershed, Tianshui,
Guansu Province of China (34°360 –34°370 N, 105°420 –105°430 E)
and situated in the southwestern hilly–gully region of the Chinese
Loess Plateau. The area is influenced by dry and continental cli-
mates, with annual mean precipitation of 469–628 mm, with high
seasonal and annual fluctuations. The average annual temperature
is 10.7 °C, with a minimum daily mean temperature of
2.3 °C in
January and a maximum daily mean temperature of 22.6 °C in July.
The highest and lowest recorded temperatures are 38.2 °C and

19.2 °C, respectively.
3.2. Measurement method
The experimental site is located in a 2500 m2 relatively level
forested area under 50-year-old locust trees with an average chest
diameter of 31 cm. Five adjacent experimental plots were selected
at intervals of about 2 m apart, as five replicates, as shown in Fig. 2.
After a level experimental plot was selected, the litter layer was
cleaned carefully, and the soil surface was revealed. ASTM indi-
cated that cylinders with diameters of about 30 and 60 cm could
be used for ring infiltriometers. Infiltrometers, with inner and
outer ring diameters of about 30 and 60 cm, have been widely
applied to measure the soil infiltration process (Clancy and Alba,
2011; Ronayne et al., 2012). Hammering a double-ring infiltrome-
ter into the soil could disturb the soil structure and produce leak-
age passages, thus affecting the measured infiltration rate and
causing a measurement error in the initial infiltration rate ranging
from 207% to 121% (Bagarello and Sgroi, 2004; Lei et al., 2013;
Zhang et al., 2016). In Lassabatere et al.’s study (2006), the rings
were positioned on the soil surface and inserted 1 cm into the soil
to measure the infiltration process. Therefore, in the current study,
243
Fig. 2. Experimental plots to measure soil matrix infiltration in forest soils on the
Loess Plateau.
the double-ring height of 8 cm was gently inserted about 1 cm into
the soil by using a rubber hammer while ensuring that the ring
remained horizontal during insertion. The same soil materials were
used to the outside of the inner and outer rings to avoid leakage of
water from inner and outer rings. A nylon cloth with a diameter of
40 cm was placed on the soil surface inside the inner ring and a cir-
cular nylon cloth with an inner diameter of 20 cm and an outer
diameter of 80 cm was placed on the soil surface between the inner
and outer rings. Afterward, a layer of fine sands of 1–3 cm thick
was evenly fed onto the nylon cloth inside the inner and buffer
rings. To minimize the risk of scouring the fine sand layers during
adding water into the rings, 5  5 cm paper boards were placed on
the sand surface. A mixed solution of water with Brilliant Blue was
put into the inner ring, and water without Brilliant Blue was
poured into the outer ring. Computed amount of water was care-
fully poured onto the paper board to fill the water to a depth of
4 cm as quickly as possible for the inner and outer rings at the
same time. The falling head method was used to measure the soil
infiltration process. Thereafter, the time durations for water level
to drop 0.5 cm in the inner ring were recorded with a stopwatch
until the infiltration time did not change for three consecutive
measurements and steady-state infiltration was assumed. Water
was refilled into the ring whenever the water level dropped to
1 cm depth. The infiltration rate was calculated with Eq. (1). The
244 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Hydrology 552 (2017) 241–248

Fig. 3. Schematic of the vertical and horizontal excavation profile (unit: cm).

Table 1
Grain size distribution of the experimental sites.

Depth (cm) Sand (%) Silt (%) Clay (%) IWC (%) SD (g/cm3) TP (%)
1–0.1 mm 0.05–0.005 mm <0.005 mm
Sand 99.78 0.22 0.00 0.12 1.41 46.79
0–20 2.21 54.00 43.79 12.49 1.49 43.77
20–40 2.20 56.00 41.80 10.69 1.53 42.26
40–60 4.20 56.00 39.80 10.30 1.53 42.26
60–80 6.20 56.00 37.80 10.70 1.62 38.87
80–100 8.23 58.00 33.77 11.89 1.59 40.00

steady-state infiltration rate was calculated based on the last three

infiltration rates. In the entire infiltration process, the water level
in the outer ring was kept equal to that in the inner ring.

DI
i¼  600 ð1Þ
Dt

where i is the infiltration rate (mm/h), DI is the cumulative infiltra-

tion in the inner ring during Dt time period (cm), Dt is the period of
infiltration time (min), and 600 is the conversion coefficient.
After the infiltration experiment, the infiltrated water was
allowed to drain over night, after the rings were removed. On the
following day, vertical soil profiles were excavated first, starting
from a trench tangent to the position where the inner ring was
located, then at the positions of 1/4 and 1/2 of the inner ring diam-
eter (Fig. 3a). After excavation of the vertical profiles, horizontal
Fig. 4. Experimental sands for sheltering macropores connecting to soil surface in
the inner and outer rings.
excavations were made at 4 depths of 5, 10, 20, and 30 cm from
the soil surface (Fig. 3b), in the remained half of the wetted soil

Fig. 5. Infiltration and cumulative infiltration curves for the five experimental plots in the forest soils.
 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Hydrology 552 (2017) 241–248 245

body. The lateral width and vertical depth of the wetted volume
were measured with a 1000 mm steel ruler with precision of
1 mm. Thereafter, soil samples were collected at depths of 0–10,
10–20, 20–40, 40–80, and 80–100 cm on the other side of the exca-
vation trench for the measurement of soil properties in the labora-
tory. Three samples were collected from each soil layer. Soil
properties measured included soil texture, bulk density, and satu-
rated hydraulic conductivity. The measured soil properties are
shown in Table 1.
Seven profiles, including vertical and horizontal, were exca-
vated in each experiment. After each profile was exposed, the soil
surface was cleaned with a portable electric fan to remove loose
soil particles and reveal strained areas. A digital camera was uti-
lized to record vertical and horizontal profiles, to identify any pos-
sible spots stained by the tracer dye, as evidence of preferential
flow.
The sand materials used as shelter materials for exclusion of
preferential flow, shown in Fig. 4, were collected from Shenmue,
Ordos City, in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (40°230 –40°25
0
N, 110°170 –110°190 E). The grain size distribution of the experi-
mental samples is shown in Table 1.

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Forest soil matrix infiltration process

According to the laboratory experimental results, the water

took only several seconds to penetrate the sand layer. The soil
matrix infiltration rate was recorded 1 min after the commence-
ment of the experiment, with Eq. (1). The measured matrix infiltra-
tion rate and cumulative infiltration curves of the five
experimental plots were shown in Fig. 5. The steady soil matrix
infiltration rate ranged from 53 to 65 mm/h and the cumulative
soil matrix infiltration ranged from 130 to 149 mm (Fig. 5). How-
ever, the steady infiltration rate of the forest soil on the Loess
Plateau measured by directly applying a double-ring infiltrometer
ranged from 300 to 720 mm/h (Jiang and Huang, 1986). The steady
matrix infiltration rate of forest soil measured in this study was far
less than that including soil matrix infiltration and preferential
flow.
According to Darcy’s equation, the soil matrix infiltration rate is
equal to the water flux on the soil surface. It is given by the govern-
ing differential equation:

@wm
iðtÞ ¼ qð0; tÞ ¼
K s þ Ks ð2Þ
@z

where i(t) is the soil matrix infiltration rate at time t; q(0,t) is the
water flux on the soil surface; wm is the soil water potential, with
@wm
@z
as the hydraulic gradient on the soil surface; z is the vertical Fig. 6. Vertical wetted soil profiles in (a) tangent, (b) 1/4, and (c) 1/2 locations of the
coordinate with a positive downward direction; and Ks is saturated inner ring 24 h after infiltration.
hydraulic conductivity.

Table 2
The model representations of matrix infiltration into the forest soil.

Site Philip Kostiakov

S K R2 A B R2
1 71.44 28.09 0.91 63.43
0.35 0.90
2 74.61 27.91 0.97 65.04
0.35 0.95
3 67.82 32.41 0.97 66.07
0.33 0.98
4 67.37 29.08 0.94 63.16
0.34 0.96
5 57.67 31.34 0.95 58.73
0.34 0.95
246 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Hydrology 552 (2017) 241–248
As t approaches zero, @w m
@z
approaches negative infinity and i
approaches positive infinity. As infiltration proceeds and water
enters the soil, the absolute value of @wm
decreases, thereby causing
@z
i to decrease with t. When t approaches positive infinity, @w m
@z
approaches zero and i approaches Ks. Thus, the change in the soil
matrix infiltration rate with t is initially high, decreases with time,
and eventually reaches equilibrium. The measured soil matrix infil-
tration rate (Fig. 5a) could well express the matrix infiltration
concept.
Infiltration into soils with macropores is regarded as two-
domain flow. The first domain is the soil matrix, in which water
is subjected to capillary suction, and infiltration is addressed with
Philip’s sorptivity concept. The second domain is the soil macrop-
ore system, in which water moves only under gravity (Weiler,
2005) and flow is addressed with kinematic wave theory (Legout
et al., 2009). Therefore, preferential flow is driven by gravity
(Germann et al., 2007) and cannot be described by Richard’s nor
Darcy-type equations and existing infiltration models (Stumpp
and Maloszewski, 2010; De Vries and Chow, 1978; Weiler, 2005).
The process is therefore multidimensional, which depends on the
geometry of the cracks, the conductivity of the soil matrix, and
the mode and duration of wetting (Hillel, 1998; Edwards et al.,
Fig. 7. Horizontal wetted soil sections at (a) 0, (b) 5, (c) 10, (d) 20, and (e) 30 cm depth 24 h after infiltration.
1988; Bouma et al., 1982). Therefore, to validate the method for
measuring soil matrix infiltration rate, the most commonly used
physical infiltration model (Philip model) and the most commonly
applied empirical model (Kostiakov model) were used to represent
the measured matrix infiltration, as shown in Table 2. These two
models fitted well with the matrix infiltration rate and cumulative
infiltration, with R2 being greater than 0.90 and 0.99, respectively,
indicating that the measured infiltration process could well repre-
sent the soil matrix infiltration.
4.2. Comparison of wetting front in the field and laboratory
Brilliant Blue possesses predicted lower sorption and higher
mobility (Flury and Flühler, 1995). It is mainly affected by prefer-
ential flow controlled by gravity and has been applied to studies
on the flow pattern of water or to estimations of the frequency,
size, and spatial distribution of pores in soils. Brilliant Blue dye is
an important tool to visualize preferential flow pathways and areas
in soil profile as flow paths. For the soil matrix without macrop-
ores, Brilliant Blue FCF moved through the surface of pseudofea-
tures into the subjacent soil matrix at a distance of 0.5–1 mm
(Nobles et al., 2004). The vertical and horizontal profiles shown
 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Hydrology 552 (2017) 241–248
+ tangent
* 1/4
O 1/2
Fig. 8. Wetted areas of vertical profiles with the semielliptical fitted by Eq. (4).
in Figs. 6 and 7 indicate that no stained area presented. This finding
indicated that the sand layer effectively sheltered the preferential
flow through macropores. Therefore the measured infiltration pro-
cess is indeed the one of soil matrix.
Under the ring infiltrometer, the wetting front in a vertical pro-
file as controlled by soil capillary force was approximately close to
a semielliptical shape, as shown in Fig. 8 (Zhang et al., 2016;
Angulo-Jaramillo et al., 2000; Chowdary et al., 2006). To quantify
the shape of the wetted area, the wetting front of different vertical
wetted areas were fitted by:
x2 z 2
þ ¼1 ð3Þ
a2 c2
where x and z are the lateral and vertical advance distances of the
wetting front, L, respectively, and a and c are the long and short
semi-axes of the elliptical, L, respectively.
For a soil column containing preferential flow, De Vries and
Chow (1978) reported that the wetted area during infiltration into
a highly porous forest soil developed so irregularly that it could not
be used to calculate Darcy-type infiltration. Fig. 8 shows also the
fitting results of the wetted profiles, which were very close to
the given semielliptical, with all the coefficients of determination
greater than 0.95 (R2 = 0.99, 0.95, and 0.97 at tangent, 1/4, and
1/2 locations of the inner ring, respectively). This result indicates
that the infiltration process in the wetted soil column was con-
trolled only by soil capillary action.
4.3. Spatial variability of forest soil matrix infiltration
Fig. 9 showed that the coefficients of variation (CV) of parame-
ters S, Ks, a, b, and is as well as CI used to analyze the spatial vari-
ability of soil matrix infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration
Fig. 9. Coefficients of variation of parameters S, Ks, a, b, is and CI of the five experimental sites.
247
(CI). The spatial variability of matrix infiltration rate and CI was
low for all experimental plots, with the largest CV being 11.7%.
The steady soil matrix infiltration rate ranged from 53 to 65 mm/
h. CI ranged from 130 to 149 mm. This conclusion is consistent
with Das Gupta et al.’s (2006) results, to demonstrate that matrix
flow exhibits low variability, characterized by low K(w). This is
understandable. The loess soil was the deposition of wind dusts
(Zhu and Ren, 1992). It is commonly believed that the soil texture
and the soil matrix structures are relatively uniform. Therefore the
matrix infiltration should also be relatively uniform. But the pref-
erential flow through macropores of random distribution could
presents high variability.
In the results of Liu et al. (2010) and Yu (2011), the initial and
steady infiltration rates measured by a conventional double-ring
infiltrometer and by the samples taken with the corer method
showed significant spatial variability. This spatial variability might
be attributed to the spatial randomness of macropores and prefer-
ential flows. Preferential flow processes varies temporally and spa-
tially (Legout et al., 2009). The variability of preferential flow
exerts a considerable influence on the hydrological response of soil
(Weiler, 2005). Preferential flow is affected by many factors, such
as macropore tortuosity (Allaire-Leung et al., 2000b), macropore
continuity (Allaire-Leung et al., 2000a), and antecedent soil mois-
ture (Hardie et al., 2011). Spatially-distributed macropore charac-
teristics differs significantly among similar vegetation types (Hu
et al., 2016). As for different soil types, preferential flow also pre-
sents high variability, as verified by the staining patterns within
the vertical and horizontal field-scale images of dye distribution
in Kodešová et al.’s study (2012).
5. Conclusions
Infiltration through forest soil matrix plays very important role
in water resource conservation and root water uptake. A method
was developed in this research to measure the matrix infiltration
capability of forest soil. A fine desert sand layer was used on top
of the forest soil surface to shelter the macropores and ensure that
water infiltrates the soil surface only through the soil matrix. The
higher infiltration capability of the sand layer than that of the
underlying soil ensures that the measured soil infiltration rate is
not limited by the shelter sand layer. The replicated measurements
at 5 plots indicated that the measured steady soil matrix infiltra-
tion rate ranged from 53 to 65 mm/h and the matrix cumulative
infiltration ranged from 130 to 149 mm, with low variability. The
measured matrix infiltration expressed the concept of soil matrix
infiltration and was consistent with the values produced by well-
accepted infiltration models; with coefficients of determination
all above 0.9. The result also indicates that forest soil matrix infil-
tration on the Loess Plateau exhibits low spatial variability. The
248 J. Zhang et al. / Journal of Hydrology 552 (2017) 241–248

proposed method provides a new means to measure the transient Kodešová, R., Šimůnek, J., Nikodem, A., Jirků, V., 2010. Estimation of the dual-
permeability model parameters using tension disk infiltrometer and Guelph
processes of forest soil matrix infiltration. Further research should
permeameter. Vadose Zone J. 9 (2), 213–225.
be conducted on additional land use patterns. Kodešová, R., Němeček, K., Kodeš, V., Žigová, A., 2012. Using dye tracer for
visualization of preferential flow at macro-and microscales. Vadose Zone J. 11
Acknowledgements (1).
Köhne, J.M., Mohanty, B.P., 2005. Water flow processes in a soil column with a
cylindrical macropore: experiment and hierarchical modeling. Water Resour.
This research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation Res. 41 (3).
of China under Project No. 41230746, No. 51621061 and No. Lassabatere, L., Angulo-Jaramillo, R., Soria Ugalde, J.M., Cuenca, R., Braud, I.,
Haverkamp, R., 2006. Beerkan estimation of soil transfer parameters through
41501303. infiltration experiments—BEST. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 70 (2), 521–532.
Legout, A., Legout, C., Nys, C., Dambrine, E., 2009. Preferential flow and slow
References convective chloride transport through the soil of a forested landscape
(Fougères, France). Geoderma 151 (3), 179–190.
Lei, T., Zhang, J., Wang, W., Ma, Y., 2013. Assessment on soil infiltration rates
Allaire, S.E., Gupta, S.C., Nieber, J., Moncrief, J.F., 2002. Role of macropore continuity
measured by ring infiltrometer. Trans. Chin. Soc. Agric. Mach. 44, 99–104.
and tortuosity on solute transport in soils: 2. Interactions with model
Li, Y., Ghodrati, M., 1997. Preferential transport of solute through soil columns
assumptions for macropore description. J. Contam. Hydrol. 58 (3), 283–298.
containing constructed macropores. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 61 (5), 1308–1317.
Allaire, S.E., Roulier, S., Cessna, A.J., 2009. Quantifying preferential flow in soils: a
Liu, X., Ma, J., Zhang, Z., 2010. Spatial variability of soil infiltration characteristics
review of different techniques. J. Hydrol. 378 (1), 179–204.
and its pseudo-transfer functions. Adv. Water Sci. 21 (214–221).
Allaire-Leung, S.E., Gupta, S.C., Moncrief, J.F., 2000a. Water and solute movement in
Logsdon, S.D., Jaynes, D.B., 1993. Methodology for determining hydraulic
soil as influenced by macropore characteristics: 1. Macropore continuity. J.
conductivity with tension infiltrometers. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 57 (6), 1426–1431.
Contam. Hydrol. 41 (3), 283–301.
Mooney, S.J., Morris, C., 2008. A morphological approach to understanding
Allaire-Leung, S.E., Gupta, S.C., Moncrief, J.F., 2000b. Water and solute movement in
preferential flow using image analysis with dye tracers and X-ray computed
soil as influenced by macropore characteristics: 2. Macropore tortuosity. J.
tomography. Catena 73 (2), 204–211.
Contam. Hydrol. 41 (3), 303–315.
Nobles, M.M., Wilding, L.P., McInnes, K.J., 2004. Submicroscopic measurements of
Angulo-Jaramillo, R., Vandervaere, J.P., Roulier, S., Thony, J.L., Gaudet, J.P., Vauclin,
tracer distribution related to surface features of soil aggregates. Geoderma 123
M., 2000. Field measurement of soil surface hydraulic properties by disc and
(1), 83–97.
ring infiltrometers: A review and recent developments. Soil Tillage Res. 55 (1),
Perroux, K.M., White, I., 1988. Designs for disc permeameters. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 52
1–29.
(5), 1205–1215.
Bagarello, V., Sgroi, A., 2004. Using the single-ring infiltrometer method to detect
Reynolds, W.D., Elrick, D.E., 1991. Determination of hydraulic conductivity using a
temporal changes in surface soil field-saturated hydraulic conductivity. Soil
tension infiltrometer. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 55 (3), 633–639.
Tillage Res. 76, 13–24.
Reynolds, W.D., Zebchuk, W.D., 1996. Use of contact material in tension
Bouma, J., Belmans, C., Dekker, L.W., 1982. Water infiltration and redistribution in a
infiltrometer measurements. Soil Technol. 9 (3), 141–159.
silt loam subsoil with vertical worm channels. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 46 (5), 917–
Ronayne, M.J., Houghton, T.B., Stednick, J.D., 2012. Field characterization of
921.
hydraulic conductivity in a heterogeneous alpine glacial till. J. Hydrol. 458,
Chowdary, V.M., Rao, M.D., Jaiswal, C.S., 2006. Study of infiltration process under
103–109.
different experimental conditions. Agric. Water Manag. 83 (1), 69–78.
Sander, T., Gerke, H.H., 2007. Preferential flow patterns in paddy fields using a dye
Clancy, K., Alba, V.M., 2011. Temperature and time of day influence on double-ring
tracer. Vadose Zone J. 6 (1), 105–115.
infiltrometer steady-state infiltration rates. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 75 (1), 241–245.
Schoen, R., Gaudet, J.P., Bariac, T., 1999. Preferential flow and solute transport in a
Das Gupta, S., Mohanty, B.P., Köhne, J.M., 2006. Soil hydraulic conductivities and
large lysimeter, under controlled boundary conditions. J. Hydrol. 215 (1), 70–81.
their spatial and temporal variations in a vertisol. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 70 (6),
Šimůnek, J., Genuchten, M.V., 1996. Estimating unsaturated soil hydraulic
1872–1881.
properties from tension disc infiltrometer data by numerical inversion. Water
De Vries, J., Chow, T.L., 1978. Hydrologic behavior of a forested mountain soil in
Resour. Res. 32 (9), 2683–2696.
coastal British Columbia. Water Resour. Res. 14 (5), 935–942.
Stagnitti, F., Parlange, J.-Y., Steenhuis, T.S., Boll, J., Pivetz, B., Barry, D.A., 1995.
Doerr, S.H., Ritsema, C.J., Dekker, L.W., Scott, D.F., Carter, D., 2007. Water repellence
Transport of moisture and solutes in the unsaturated zone by preferential flow.
of soils: new insights and emerging research needs. Hydrol. Process. 21 (17),
In: Singh, V.P. (Ed.), Environmental Hydrology. Kluwer Academic Publishers,
2223–2228.
Dordrecht.
Edwards, W.M., Norton, L.D., Redmond, C.E., 1988. Characterizing macropores that
Stumpp, C., Maloszewski, P., 2010. Quantification of preferential flow and flow
affect infiltration into nontilled soil. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 52 (2), 483–487.
heterogeneities in an unsaturated soil planted with different crops using the
Everts, C.J., Kanwar, R.S., 1990. Estimating preferential flow to a subsurface drain
environmental isotope d 18O. J. Hydrol. 394 (3), 407–415.
with tracers. Trans. ASAE 33 (2), 451–0457.
Sun, L., 2013. Transportation and path distribution of preferential flow in citrus soils
Flury, M., Flühler, H., 1995. Tracer characteristics of brilliant blue FCF. Soil Sci. Soc.
of purple sandstone regions, Three Gorges reservoir area Dissertation for
Am. J. 59 (1), 22–27.
Master’s Degree. Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China.
Germann, P., Helbling, A., Vadilonga, T., 2007. Rivulet approach to rates of
Wang, D., Norman, J.M., Lowery, B., McSweeney, K., 1994. Nondestructive
preferential infiltration. Vadose Zone J. 6 (2), 207–220.
determination of hydrogeometrical characteristics of soil macropores. Soil Sci.
Greve, A., Andersen, M.S., Acworth, R.I., 2010. Investigations of soil cracking and
Soc. Am. J. 58 (2), 294–303.
preferential flow in a weighing lysimeter filled with cracking clay soil. J. Hydrol.
Wang, W., Zhang, H.J., Cheng, J.H., Wu, Y.H., Du, S.C., Wang, R., 2010. Macropore
393 (1), 105–113.
characteristics and its relationships with the preferential flow in broad leaved
Hardie, M.A. et al., 2011. Effect of antecedent soil moisture on preferential flow in a
forest soils of Simian Mountains. Chin. J. Appl. Ecol. 21 (5), 1217–1223.
texture-contrast soil. J. Hydrol. 398 (3), 191–201.
Weiler, M., 2005. An infiltration model based on flow variability in macropores:
Hillel, D., 1998. Environmental Soil Physics. Academic Press, New York.
development, sensitivity analysis and applications. J. Hydrol. 310 (1), 294–315.
Hu, X., Li, Z., Li, X., Liu, L., 2016. Quantification of soil macropores under alpine
Wu, J., Zhang, J., Gao, R., 2009. Physical simulation experiments of effects of
vegetation using computed tomography in the Qinghai Lake Watershed, NE
macropores on soil water infiltration characteristics. Trans. Chin. Soc. Agric.
Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Geoderma 264, 244–251.
Eng. 25 (10), 13–18.
Jabro, J.D., Lotse, E.G., Fritton, D.D., Baker, D.E., 1994. Estimation of preferential
Yu, K., 2011. The spatial variability of soil infiltration capacity at Loess Hilly Area.
movement of bromide tracer under field conditions. J. Hydrol. 156 (1), 61–71.
Lanzhou University.
Jarvis, N.J., 2007. A review of non-equilibrium water flow and solute transport in
Zhang, J., Lei, T.W., Chen, T.Q., 2016. Impact of preferential and lateral flows of water
soil macropores: Principles, controlling factors and consequences for water
on single-ring measured infiltration process and its analysis. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J.
quality. Eur. J. Soil Sci. 58 (3), 523–546.
80 (4), 859–869.
Jiang, D.S., Huang, J.G., 1986. Study on infiltration rate of soils on the Loess Plateau
Zhu, X., Ren, E.M., 1992. Formation process of the Loess Plateau and a strategy of its
of China. Acta Pedol. Sin. 23 (4), 299–305.
management. Soil Water Conserv. China 2, 4–11.
Klute, A., Dirksen, C., 1986. Hydraulic conductivity and diffusivity: Laboratory
methods. Methods of Soil Analysis: Part 1—Physical and Mineralogical Methods
(methods of soil an 1): pp. 687–734.