This paper presents the full analyses of runoff plot experiments observed by automatic recording instruments on rainfall, surface runoff, soil moisture variation, water movement in soil, etc., to make clear the infiltration characteristics of the sloping clayey soil surface with three.different types of surface covering. The outline of these plots was previously published.
These analyses are summarized, as follows:
(1) The initial, rain differs remarkably in each other plot according to the structural characteristics of surface soil and covering, and its average value for bare soil surface, dense turf covering and forest covering equals to 1.4 mm, 6.1mm and 18.0 mm respectively. But of all plots, the same correlation exists among the initial soil moisture, the initial mass rainfall and the rainfall intensity in the initial stage of surface runoff; the more the initial soil moisture is, the less is the initial mass rainfall and the lower is the rainfall intensity above mentioned; the latter decreases linearly.
(2) Of all plots, the functional relation between infiltration intensity and rainfall intensity is approximated in the extreme accuracy by the expression of linear function as in the analyses of rain simulator infiltrometer experiments previously published, as follows:
i=αγ+ (1-γ) γ
0i: infiltration intensity;γ: rainfall intensity;
γo: minimum rainfall intensity for surface runoff occuring and average infiltration intensity through the parts of ground surface covered with surface sheet flow;
αa: the areal ratio of the portion of ground surface not covered with surface sheet flow to the whole ground surface.
(3) According to the relation above mentioned, effective mass rainfall for surface runoff (Δ
e) is exactly the residual from mass rainfall, that is mass rainfall (ΔR) on the portion (1-α) of ground surface covered with surface sheet flow minus mass infiltration (γ
0·ΔT) through the portion.
(4) Surface runoff coefficient varies conspicuously on the ground surface where both (1-α) and γ
0 are comparatively large.
View full abstract