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The Richards equation represents the movement of water in unsaturated soils, and is attributed to Lorenzo A. Richards who published the equation in 1931. [1] It is a quasilinear partial differential equation ; its analytical solution is often limited to specific initial and boundary conditions. [ 2 ]
The vadose zone, also termed the unsaturated zone, is the part of Earth between the land surface and the top of the phreatic zone, the position at which the groundwater (the water in the soil's pores) is at atmospheric pressure ("vadose" is from the Latin word for "shallow").
The slope of the water table is known as the “hydraulic gradient”, which depends on the rate at which water is added to and removed from the aquifer and the permeability of the material. The water table does not always mimic the topography due to variations in the underlying geological structure (e.g., folded, faulted, fractured bedrock).
The advection-like term of the Soil Moisture Velocity Equation is particularly useful for calculating the advance of wetting fronts for a liquid invading an unsaturated porous medium under the combined action of gravity and capillarity because it is convertible to an ordinary differential equation by neglecting the diffusion-like term.
In soils with a wide range in pore size, the unsaturated zone can be several times thicker than the saturated zone. Some workers restrict their definition of the capillary fringe only to the tension-saturated base portion and exclude it wholly from the vadose zone. [1] [2] This is more common among workers addressing solute transport and water ...
A newer method that allows 1-D groundwater and surface water coupling in homogeneous soil layers and that is related to the Richards equation is the Finite water-content vadose zone flow method solution of the Soil Moisture Velocity Equation. In the case of uniform initial soil water content and deep, well-drained soil, some excellent ...
The part above the water table is the vadose zone (also called unsaturated zone). The phreatic zone size, color, and depth may fluctuate with changes of season, and during wet and dry periods. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Depending on the characteristics of soil particles, their packing and porosity, the boundary of a saturated zone can be stable or instable ...
A horizontal water balance is applied to a long vertical column with area extending from the aquifer base to the unsaturated surface. This distance is referred to as the saturated thickness , b . In a confined aquifer , the saturated thickness is determined by the height of the aquifer, H , and the pressure head is non-zero everywhere.