Experimental Investigation of Relationship between Infiltration Rate and Soil Moisture under Rainfall Conditions

• Main Authors: Chen, P. (Author), Li, L. (Author), Li, S. (Author), Li, Z. (Author), Shao, J. (Author), Wei, L. (Author), Yang, M. (Author), Zhao, R. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI 2022
• Subjects: Artificial rainfall; artificial rainfall experiment; Artificial rainfall experiment; Experimental investigations; Horton equation; Horton equations; Infiltration; Infiltration process; Infiltration rate; Initial soil moisture; Moisture determination; Rain; Rainfall condition; soil infiltration; Soil infiltration; Soil moisture; soil moisture content; Soil moisture content; Soil surveys
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher
• ISBN: 20734441 (ISSN)
• DOI: 10.3390/w14091347

In this study, a mathematical expression describing the relationship between infiltration rate and soil moisture content was deduced based on the Horton equation in order to study the relationship between infiltration rate and soil moisture content during the rainfall infiltration process. Specific experimental data on infiltration processes were used to verify the validity of the equations and to analyze the main factors affecting the infiltration rate. The results indicate the following: (1) The experimental data demonstrated a high degree of accuracy. The volumetric error of soil moisture increase and cumulative infiltration was 3.5% and the coefficient of determination (R2) was 0.87 in the 42 tests. (2) The equation obtained in this paper can well describe the relationship between infiltration rate and soil moisture content; the R2 of the fitted results was greater than 0.80 in more than 80% of the experiments. (3) The relationship between infiltration rate and soil moisture content is mainly influenced by initial soil moisture content; the higher the initial soil moisture content, the lower the initial infiltration rate, the faster the infiltration rate decreases with soil moisture content, and the lower the “relative stable infiltration rate” in the process of infiltration. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.