Estimation of infiltration rate based on complementary error function peak for Ozat watershed in Gujarat (India)

Abstract

Infiltration refers to the downward movement of water into the soil from the surface driven by force of gravity and capillary attraction Infiltration of water in unsaturated soils has long been an important impact in soil science hydrology and geotechnical engineering Fieldmeasurement of infiltration is very tedious and time consumingand hence it is often estimated from different conceptual models Thus in the present study a model based on complementary error function peak ERFC is proposed to determine infiltration rate for the Ozat Watershed of Gujarat India The two quantitative standard statistical performance evaluation measures refined Willmott rsquo s index dr and mean absolute error MAE are employed in comparingand evaluating the performance of theproposed model with existing Horton rsquo s Modified Kostiakov and Green Ampt infiltration models The results of the models are validated with the Double ring infiltrometer field data of different soil types The proposed ERFC based model was judged to be more consistent with dr to and MAE to cm hr The results presented in this work are quite encouraging Further the findings indicate that the use of ERFC based proposed model appears to be the most suitable and appropriate for estimation of infiltration rate in Ozat watershed