Vadose Zone Hydrology Basics

Abstract

The vadose zone consists of the soil or rock located between land surface and the regional water table and forms the interface between a surficial hydrological system and its underlying aquifer. Vadose zone processes control the rate of recharge in surface-spearding managed aquifer recharge (MAR) systems and increases in importance as the depth to the water table, and thus thickness of the zone, increases. Vadose zone processes have great importance in some MAR systems that utilize surface spreading because the zone is the location of many contaminant attenuation and other geochemical processes revelant to water quality. There is great variation in how the vadose zone is considered in MAR invesigations from a simple lumped black-box approach to detailed field investigation and modeling of vadose zone processes.