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The redistribution of a surface layer of solute during the drainage of a soil profile to field capacity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

G. D. Towner
Affiliation:
Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 2JQ

Summary

An approximate analytical method derived by Wilson & Gelhar (1981) is a powerful and flexible one for calculating solute distribution profiles developing under steady state and transient water flow conditions. Solute concentration profiles developing from an initial deposition in the surface layer, as the soil profile returns to field capacity, have been calculated using the method for idealized representations of the two principal forms of water redistribution.

The profiles depend very strongly on the mode of redistribution of the water. However, the small spread of the final profiles (at field capacity) across the range of water redistribution types examined suggest that, for agricultural application, it might be accurate enough to use a simplified representation of the actual redistribution rather than the correct, and inevitably more complicated, water flows and distribution.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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