• Agricultural runoff can be filtered for groundwater recharge through dry wells. • Hydraulic conductivity of filters reduced exponentially with cumulative filtration. • Provision of sedimentation tank or raised filter helped maintain high conductivity. • The top deposition and entrapment in 5 cm accounted for 87.5% of the total sediment. • Removal of top 3–4 cm of layer resulted in 70–80% recovery of hydraulic conductivity. A laboratory based empirical assessment of hydraulics of sand filters was carried out under the compelling practical condition of exposure to alternate cycles (wet and dry spell) of filtration. The lab-scale simulations purportedly attempted to mimic the field scale condition of sediment loading in runoff as suspended sediment. The sand filters having a layer thickness of 50 cm and 30 cm with a particle size of <2 mm and 0.2–0.5 mm on the gravel-pebble base were tested for the progressive change in hydraulic conductivity and sediment removal during the filtration event under a combination of treatments using different sediment concentrations (1.5 g l −1 , 2 g l −1 , and 2.5 g l −1 ) and water heads (20 cm and 40 cm). A sharp reduction in filter hydraulic conductivity was observed in the case of higher sediment concentration. A filtration hiatus of 2 days between tests resulted in significant improvement in the hydraulic conductivity of the filter matrix. The provisions of pre-entry sedimentation trap before filtration could maintain a scaled-up hydraulic conductivities for a longer duration. A layer of additional reinforcement of an agro-net above the filter matrix, though facilitated easy cleaning after a filtration event, but resulted in a scaled-down hydraulic efficiency. Removal of the top 3 to 4 cm of the filter top could recover about 70 to 80% of the initial hydraulic conductivity. After filtration of sediment equivalent to 16.1 and 17.0 kg m −2 , the top deposition accounted for 72.07 and 73.12%, respectively, which along with the sediment entrapped in the top 5 cm accounted for more than 87% of the total sediment. A steady state concentration of sediment in the filtrate in all the above combinations was found to converge asymptotically below 0.10 g l −1 which, in a limited means used as a basis to custom designed field scale recharge filter using the sand as matrix filter.