Abstract
Hydrogeological parameters of field soil porous media are distributed with large heterogeneity. Evaluation of physical heterogeneity effects on soil water flow is important to understand basic flow characteristics of field soil. In this study, two types of water infiltration experiments were carried out to examine water flow under the heterogeneous distribution of hydraulic conductivities. Soil water change was measured by time domain reflectometry (TDR) using small printed circuit board probes (PCBP). To evaluate soil water distribution change in the experimental sand box, the simple image analysis of digital photo of the experiments was applied. In order to understand detailed water and air flow in the experiments, numerical simulations were carried out. In the numerical simulations, ordinary unsaturated-saturated seepage analysis and two-phase flow analysis were compared. Moreover, hysteresis effects on the soil water content change were also examined. Apparent differences between unsaturated-saturated and two-phase analyses were not observed in the results of water content change. For the ponding experiment, histeresis should be included in the simulation.
