Abstract
Infiltration estimation is made by tests such as concentric cylinders, which are prone to errors, such as the lateral movement under the ring. Several possibilities have been developed over the last decades to compensate these errors, which are based on physical, electronic, and mathematical principles. In this research, two approaches are proposed to measure the water infiltration rate in a silty loam soil by means of the mass values of a lysimeter weighing under rainfall conditions and different moisture contents. Based on the fact that with the lysimeter it is possible to determine acting soil flows very precisely, then with the help of mass conservation and assuming a downward vertical movement, 12 rain events were analyzed. In addition, it was possible to monitor the behavior of soil moisture and to establish the content at field capacity from the values of the weighing lysimeter, from which both approach are based. The infiltration rate of these events showed a variable rate at the beginning of the rainfall until reaching a maximum, to descend to a stable or basic rate. This basic infiltration rate was 1.49 ± 0.36 mm/h, and this is because soils with fine textures have reported low infiltration capacity. Four empirical or semi-empirical models of infiltration were calibrated with the values obtained with our approaches, showing a better fit with the Horton’s model.
Highlights
To understand the behavior of the hydrological cycle in the soil remains a challenge for science, the movement of water through the soil and its capacity to retain it
To estimate the water exchange between a well-defined portion of soil and other physical systems to which water is transferred through evaporation, transpiration, percolation or drainage, several methods as gravimetric, tensiometry, humidity sensing, and lysimetry have been proposed in the specialized literature [1,2,3]
In the case of the data from the drainage vessel, the rise of the curve represents that the drainage has started and the sudden descents show us the emptying of the vessel
Summary
To understand the behavior of the hydrological cycle in the soil remains a challenge for science, the movement of water through the soil and its capacity to retain it. Infiltration is the hydrological process that describes the entry of water into a soil, and the amount of water that enters the soil in a given time represents the infiltration rate [4,5] It is variable in space and time, due to hydrodynamic and physical soil properties, flow conditions, and cultivation practices, among others [6,7,8,9]. It is assumed that if the soil is at its lower limit of initial moisture content, a higher infiltration rate would be observed [10,11,12,13,14] This is not true for hydrophobic or water-repellent soils caused by high organic matter and clay content [15]
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