Numerical routine for soil water dynamics from trickle irrigation

•An explicit numerical routine for integrating the Richards equation is proposed.•The proposed numerical routine is validated in two different ways.•Applications of the proposed routine are described.•The advantage of this tool over other routines is discussed.•A reference version of the proposed ro...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied Mathematical Modelling 2020-07, Vol.83, p.371-385
Main Authors: del Vigo, Ángel, Zubelzu, Sergio, Juana, Luis
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boundary conditions
Computer simulation
Emitters
Exact solutions
Explicit finite-difference method
Finite difference method
Numerical integration
Overpressure
Richards equation
Software
Soil dynamics
Soil water
Soil water flux
Three dimensional motion
Three-dimensional infiltration
Time dependence
Trickle irrigation
Water infiltration
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•An explicit numerical routine for integrating the Richards equation is proposed.•The proposed numerical routine is validated in two different ways.•Applications of the proposed routine are described.•The advantage of this tool over other routines is discussed.•A reference version of the proposed routine is provided. An explicit finite-difference routine was developed to simulate the three-dimensional water movement from a trickle irrigation source by direct numerical integration of the Richards equation. Validation of the code was performed, on the one hand, by comparison with existing analytical solutions, and, on the other hand, with the HYDRUS 2D/3D software package to check different conditions further than assumed analytical simplifications. In the simulations performed, the routine showed an accurate and stable behavior. Additionally, it is flexible to define different boundary conditions. Furthermore, some specific studies performed with this routine are presented to illustrate the applications of this tool. It is shown that the code is able to reproduce water infiltration features such as redistribution, unsteady surface puddle area, and time-dependent overpressure around a buried emitter, which are phenomena of interest that are difficult to simulate with other software.
ISSN:0307-904X
1088-8691
0307-904X
DOI:10.1016/j.apm.2020.01.058