Exercises

1. Calculate the soil moisture flux q (cm/day) between depths 0.8 m and 1.8 m in the soil at Deep
Dean. The data for total head at these depths are given at weekly time intervals in columns 2
and 3 of Table 1. For this soil the relationship between hydraulic conductivity and soil suction
head is K = 250(-ψ)-2.11, where K is in centimeters per day and ψ is in centimeters.

Table 1. Computation of soil moisture flux between 0.8 m and 1.8 m depth at Deep
Dean

2. A small tube with a cross-sectional area of 40 cm2 is filled with soil and laid horizontally. The
open end of the tube is saturated, and after 15 minutes, 100 cm3 of water have infiltrated into
the tube. If the saturated hydraulic conductivity of the soil is 0.4 cm/h, determine how much
infiltration would have taken place in 30 minutes if the soil column had initially been placed
upright with its upper surface saturated.
1
Hint: F(t) = St1/2 + Kt and f(t) = 2St1/2 + K

3. Compute the infiltration rate/ and cumulative infiltration F after one hour of infiltration into a
silt loam soil that initially had an effective saturation of 30 percent. Assume water is ponded to
a small but negligible depth on the surface. (See Table 2)
𝜃−𝜃𝑟 𝜓∆𝜃 𝐹(𝑡)
Hint: 𝑠𝑒 = , ∆𝜃 = (1 − 𝑠𝑒 )𝜃𝑒 , 𝑓(𝑡) = 𝐾 ( 𝐹(𝑡) + 1), 𝐹(𝑡) = 𝐾𝑡 + 𝜓∆𝜃 ln (1 + 𝜓∆𝜃)
ƞ−𝜃𝑟

4. Compute the ponding time and the depth of water infiltrated at ponding for a silt loam soil of
30 percent initial effective saturation, subject to rainfall intensities of (a) 1 cm/h and (b) 5 cm/h.
𝐾𝜓∆𝜃
Hint: 𝑡𝑝 = 𝑖(𝑖−𝑘) , 𝐹𝑝 = 𝑖𝑡𝑝

5. Calculate the cumulative infiltration and the infiltration rate after one hour of rainfall of
intensity 5 cm/h on a silt loam soil with an initial effective saturation of 30 percent.
𝜓∆𝜃+𝐹 𝜓∆𝜃
Hint: 𝐹 − 𝐹𝑝 − 𝜓∆𝜃 ln [𝜓∆𝜃+𝐹 ] = 𝐾(𝑡 − 𝑡𝑝 ) , 𝑓 = 𝐾( + 1)
𝑝 𝐹
 Table 2: Green-Ampt infiltration parameters for various soil classes

Figure 1: Infiltration rate and cumulative infiltration for ponding under constant intensity rainfall