Abstract
It is known that fingering flow may occur in unsaturated sandy soil. But numerical simulation cannot realize that if the soil is assumed to be uniform. In this study, conventional saturated-unsaturated seepage analysis coupled with 1/f-ζ model as the geostatistical model of hydraulic conductivity are carried out. The results show that if the mean value of hydraulic conductivity is relatively high, the fingering flow can be simulated even though the variance of hydraulic conductivity is very low. It can be explained by the difference of water retention curves. The shapes of flow path can be characterized by fractal dimension. If the mean value of hydraulic conductivity is relatively low, the fingering flow rarely occurs except the case of the variance of hydraulic conductivity is very high.
