September, 2013 Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal Open access at http://www.cigrjournal.org Vol. 15, No.

3 1

Modeling for predicting soil wetting radius under point source

surface trickle irrigation

R. Subbaiah*, H.H. Mashru

(Centre of Excellence on Soil and Water Management, Research Training and Testing Centre,
Junagadh Agricultural University, Motibaugh, Junagadh-362 001, Gujarat, India)

Abstract: Irrigation practices that are profligate in their use of water have come under closer scrutiny by water managers and
the public. Trickle irrigation has the propensity to increase water use efficiency only if the system is designed to meet the soil
and plant conditions. Information on moisture distribution patterns under point source trickle emitters is a pre-requisite for the
design and operation of trickle irrigation systems. This will ensure precise placement of water and fertilizer in the active root
zone. For many practical situations, detailed information on matric potential or water content distribution within the wetted
volume is not necessary and prediction of the boundaries and shape of the wetted soil volume suffice. Simple models are
more convenient for system design than the dynamic models. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop a simple
heuristic model that can help to determine the wetting radius from surface point drip irrigation using infiltration properties of
the soil. The parameters of the model are easily measurable and available. The expression for determining the radius of
water entry at the surface (rw), the depth of wetting front (d) for a particular discharge as a function of time and the radius of
wetted bulb at the selected depth (Rw) could be estimated. The model validation was attained in two stages: a) theoretically by
matching the volume of water contained in the bulb constructed using developed methodology with the amount of water
supplied and b) by conducting an experiment at the instructional farm soils of Junagadh Agricultural University, Junagadh, with
three different emitter discharges (0.002 m3 h-1, 0.004 m3 h-1 and 0.008 m3 h-1) ) to compare the computed values with the field
observations. Results indicated that wetted bulb had circular top area with radius (rw) which increased both with the increase
in Q and elapsed time t. If time t was fixed, radius was directly proportional to Q1/2. The depth of wetting front was found to
be invariant with emitter flow rate provided the emitter discharge was less than the infiltration capacity of the soil and an
impervious stratum exists at the bottom of the soil. The relative agreement between computed values with the experimental
data was evaluated quantitatively using goodness of fit and efficiency coefficient. High efficiency coefficient and goodness of
fit were observed. The computed volume of water contained within the wetting bulb matched well with the amount of water
supplied.

Keywords: trickle irrigation, wetted radius, simple heuristic model

Citation: Subbaiah, R., and H.H. Mashru. 2013. Modeling for predicting soil wetting radius under point source surface
trickle irrigation. Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal, 15(3): 1－10.

produce more food using less water without degrading

1 Introduction
soil and water resources. Drip irrigation technology can
As the population grows and urban water use help to meet this challenge by giving growers a greater
increases, irrigated agriculture is being called on to control over the application of water, fertilizers, and
pesticides while also protecting the environment. With
Received date: 2011-01-26 Accepted date: 2013-04-10 this method, water is conducted under low pressure to a
* Corresponding author: R. Subbaiah, Centre of Excellence on
network of closely spaced outlets which discharges the
Soil and Water Management, Research Training and Testing
Centre, Junagadh Agricultural University, Motibaugh,
water slowly at virtually zero pressure. This method has
Junagadh-362 001, Gujarat, India. Email: [email protected], the advantage of precisely applying irrigation water in
[email protected]. both location and amount. This offers the potential of
 2 September, 2013 Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal Open access at http://www.cigrjournal.org Vol. 15, No.3

increased profit due to reduced water, fertilizer and Warrick, 1988; Angelakis et al., 1993) and the finite
cultural costs and increased revenue due to increased element technique (Taghavi et al., 1984; Ghali, 1986;
yield. Meshkat et al., 1999; Simunek et al., 1999; Schmitz et al.,
In the design of the trickle system, the volume of soil 2002; Cote et al., 2003; Elmaloglou and Diamantopoulos,
wetted by a single emitter is important. This must be 2010; Patel and Rajput, 2010; Maziar and Simunek,
known in order to determine the total number of emitters 2010). A detailed review of these models were
required to wet a large volume of soil to ensure that the presented by Subbaiah (2013). These techniques
plant’s water requirement would be met. The volume of showed good results compared to laboratory results for
soil wetted from a point source is primarily a function of infiltration under a point source. However, they were
the soil texture, soil structure, application rate and the generally computationally intensive, requiring extensive
total volume of water applied. The volume of water soil property data, and involving parameterization and
applied per irrigation also affects the width and depth of fine spatial and temporal discretization which could result
the wetted soil volume and therefore influences the in errors and too complicated for routine use (Skaggs and
optimal emitter spacing. Khaleel, 1982; Ogden and Saghafian, 1997; Dasberg and
Wetting pattern can be obtained by direct Or, 1999). Even with the availability of computers and
measurement of soil wetting in field. However, caution models to simulate infiltration from a drip source, these
needs to be applied to the use of direct measurements for were not often used by designer of irrigation system
deriving general design criteria, since site conditions, (Zazueta et al., 1995).
such as compaction layers or surface soil conditions, may Lastly, empirical models based on a solution of
be quite specific and installation of instrumentation can Richards’ equation (Schwartzman and Zur, 1986; Healy
affect the wetting patterns being measured. Hence and Warrick, 1988) and approximate models (Asher et al.,
researchers adopted simulation using some numerical or 1986; Roth, 1974) were proposed with good results, but
analytical or empirical models. A proliferation of only in limited applications and needs to be validated
models for simulating infiltration from point source against experimental values.
systems have been developed based on Richards’ (1931) For many practical situations, detailed information on
equation for unsaturated flow. The analytical solutions matric potential or water content distribution within the
to Richards’ equation include steady state solutions wetted volume is not necessary and prediction of the
(Wooding, 1968; Philip, 1971; Raats, 1971; Parlange, boundaries and shape of the wetted soil volume
1972; Revol et al., 1997a, 1997b; Thorburn, et al., 2003; suffice. However, a simple model is usually more
Cook et al., 2003), non-steady linearized solutions convenient for the system design than the dynamic
(Warrick, 1974; Warrick and Lomen, 1976) and a models. The simple models should have: a) Modest
quasi-linearized approximation solution (Philip, 1984a, parameter requirements; b) Provision of insight and a
1984b). These models were based on the assumption of direct link between input parameters and resultant shape
a point source and certain forms for the physical of wetted soil volume; c) Provision of general framework
properties of soil and water content distributions (Philip, which facilitates design formulation and management
1984a; Revol et al., 1997a). The application of these guidelines; d) Easily measurable and available parameters
models was limited in simulation of water movement in the model.
under drip irrigation system under simple boundary Keeping in view of the above limitations of various
conditions. approaches a simple heuristic model, therefore, was
Numerical models, which solve governing flow developed in this study that can help to determine the
equations for particular initial and boundary conditions shape of the wetted soil volume from surface point drip
using the finite difference technique (Bresler et al., 1971; irrigation using the infiltration properties of the soil and
Brandt et al., 1971; Witherspoon, 1976; Healy and simultaneously satisfying the defined conditions above.
 September, 2013 Modeling for predicting soil wetting radius under point source surface trickle irrigation Vol. 15, No.3 3

was observed that, (Bresler et al., 1971) in general, a

2 Concepts and theory
radial area of ponded water develops in the vicinity of the
2.1 Prediction of surface radius of wetted bulb (rw) trickle source. This area is initially very small, but its
The effect of any irrigation method on the soil water radius becomes larger as time increases. Assuming the
regime depends on conditions prevailing at the soil land surface near the emitter as plane/horizontal, the area
surface boundary. The distribution pattern of soil water through which water enters the soil will increase with the
resulting from trickle sources can be very different from increase in time due to decrease in infiltration rate with
those resulting from the more conventional modes of time and constant emitter discharge. Since the ponded
irrigation. The traditional irrigation cycle consist of body of water is usually very thin, one can safely neglect
short period of infiltration followed by a long period of the effect of storage of water at the soil surface. This
simultaneous redistribution, evaporation and extraction means that the water from the trickle source is able to
by plants. The goal of the decision maker is to minimize infiltrate into the soil, or evaporate into the air,
the number of irrigations by increasing the interval instantaneously. The rate of evaporation becomes an
between two successive irrigations without causing an important factor only when the potential evaporation is
economic yield reduction. To minimize the irrigation extremely high (> 10 mm d-1) and the saturated hydraulic
frequency the goal was to maximize the quantity of conductivity of the soil is very low (< 0.1 cm h-1) (Bresler
irrigation water at each application for subsequent use by 1975). The soil water content immediately beneath the
the crop. The traditional methods caused high soil water ponded area is always equal to the water content at
fluctuations which were affecting the crop growth and saturation. Water infiltrates into the soil through this
yield. This is partly removed by high frequency saturated area only. It is assumed that the center of this
irrigation technique like trickle irrigation. The trickle disk like zone is at (0, 0) and its radius is a function of
irrigation system delivers water at discrete points on the time.
soil surface rather than over the entire area in small The potential advantage of trickle irrigation is to
quantities as often as desired with no additional cost maximize the time average of soil water potential by
(Rawlins, 1973). If the point is isolated, the soil is increasing the irrigation frequency. As the frequency
wetted in a bulb like, axially symmetric pattern rather increases, the infiltration period becomes more important
than in a one dimensional fashion. and the irrigation cycle is changed from an extraction
The wetted area in trickle irrigation depends upon the dominated process to an infiltration dominated process
emitter discharge rate, soil type and the infiltration (Rawlins, 1973) and is dominated by the stage of
characteristics. One method to determine the supply infiltration. The infiltration rate at all points within the
radius is to measure directly the saturated wetted radius circle of entry at time t is not the same. It is smaller
that develops on the surface of the soil. While this near to the centre and large near the periphery of wetting
would provide a good estimate, it is location specific. It front due to variation in opportunity time among different
appears that a simple procedure could be developed to points on the circle. In order to find the radius of circle
predict the wetting pattern geometry. The accuracy of of water entry at time ‘t’ it is necessary to account for the
results depends on the following approximations: a) a average infiltration rate. The expected diameter of the
single surface point source irrigated a bare soil with a water pool formed on the ground surface can be obtained
constant discharge rate; b) the soil is homogeneous; c) by equating the rate of outflow from the emitter (Q) to the
isotropic and of uniform initial volumetric moisture rate of inflow into the soil (Dov, 1982).
content; d) water table is beyond the vicinity of root zone, Q = A Iav (1)
and e) model has axial symmetry (along the vertical axis). where, Iav is the average infiltration rate and A is the area
When the emitter is turned on, the water spreads over of water entry into the soil. Bresler et al. (1971) and Dov
the surface and the wetted area gradually expands. It (1982) considered the water entry area as circular. So
 4 September, 2013 Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal Open access at http://www.cigrjournal.org Vol. 15, No.3

A  πrw2 (2) tends to stabilize (Roth, 1974). In general, the higher

Let I1 is considered as the initial value and I2 be the the discharge rate and the lower the infiltrability of the

infiltration rate at any time, t. The average infiltration is soil, the larger will be the wetted area. In the numerical

described as (Figure 1): analysis of Brandt et al. (1971), infiltration from a drip

Iav = I2 + (I1 - I2)/3 (3) source is modeled by assuming the water entry zone as
saturated. The width of saturated zone was 220 and
580 mm, respectively, for discharge rates of 0.0018 m3 h-1
and 0.0059 m3 h-1. The time necessary to reach the
maximum wetted area on the surface was on the order of
3 h for the lowest discharge rate to nearly one day for the
highest rate.
2.2 Radius of wetted bulb (Rw) at depth (d)
Water has a tendency to move vertically rather than
horizontally. Water moves in soils as a result of the
matric potential (directly related to water content) and
Figure 1 Concept of average infiltration with time gravitational potential (tendency of the water to move
downward). In dry soils, matric potential is dominant
The average infiltration was approximated for the compared to gravitational potential. As soil gets wetter,
study soil using the value 3 in equation above (Equation gravitational potential dominates the matric potential.
(3)). It can be generalized to any other type of the soil The higher the application rate the larger is the influence
or area by taking the infiltration characteristic curve of of gravity and, as a result, the narrower was the wetted
that soil and replacing 3 in Equation (3) by any other area (Roth, 1974). The radius of wetted bulb at any
number to get the average characteristics of that soil. In depth, d, and time, t, is expressed heuristically as:
this way the model can be generalized to any other type   rw 2
Rw  rw   (7)
of soil. The Kostiakov’s equation (kostiakov, 1932) for 2  rw0 
cumulative depth of infiltration in a soil (d) is expressed where , rw0 is the radius of circular area of entry of water
as into the soil (cm) at the surface when time t tends to be
d = ktn (4) large whose further increase can be considered negligible
where, k and n are the constants representing the soil (drw /dt = 0 as t → ∞). The Rw is measured from the
properties at the time of irrigation. The instantaneous vertical axis through the dripper.
rate of infiltration (I) at any time, t, can be obtained by Maximum depth of wetting front below the emitter is
differentiating Equation ( 4) with respect to t and is given generally observed due to availability of maximum
by: opportunity time equal to duration of irrigation. The
I = atb (5) infiltration opportunity time can be determined by
where, a = kn and b = (n-1) are the coefficient and index subtracting the advance time from total time of irrigation
respectively. application. All other points in the wetted bulb away
The radius of the water pool formed on the ground from this axis have lesser opportunity time than the point
surface (rw) can be obtained by substituting Equation (5), beneath the emitter. If horizontal lines are drawn
Equation (3) and Equation (2) into Equation (1) which through different depths for different opportunity times,
can be expressed as: then they represent circular areas with each radius Rw
rw 2  0.955Q / a (2 t b  3b ) (6) corresponding to the given depth.
where, Q is the emitter flow rate (cm3 min-1). As time t Generally the objective of irrigation is to replenish the
becomes very large the wetted area remains finite and moisture in the root zone. The important parameters of
 September, 2013 Modeling for predicting soil wetting radius under point source surface trickle irrigation Vol. 15, No.3 5

wetted bulb utilized in the design of drip irrigation by equating the volume of water supplied and volume
include: a) the depth of wetting front (d) at any time ti; b) calculated from the geometry of the bulb defined from
the radius of water pool formed on the ground surface; above models. A study was conducted on a clay loam
and c) the radius of water pool (Rw) at depth d after time ti. soil at the instructional farm of College of Agricultural
The time needed for the water to reach root zone is Engineering and Technology, Junagadh Agricultural
controlled mainly by infiltration of the soil. So University, Junagadh, Gujarat, India to observe
neglecting all other effects for drip irrigation, the depth of configuration of wetted radius on the surface as well as at
wetting front at any time, ti, is expressed as different depths for different discharges under point
b
d = (ti /T) RDmax (8) source surface drip irrigation. The emitter discharge
where, T is the irrigation application time in min; RDmax rates considered for evaluation of the model include
is the maximum depth of root zone and ti is the time at 0.002, 0.004 and 0.008 m3 h-1. In this study, to evaluate
which depth is to be calculated. The radius of pool the physical properties of soil, soil samples were
formed on the ground surface is calculated from Equation collected from different layers of the soil to a depth of
(6) and the radius of water pool (Rw) at any depth (d) will 0.9 m and analyzed to determine the physical properties
be calculated by taking the infiltration opportunity time at like particle size distribution, bulk density, field capacity,
that depth in Equation (7). permanent wilting point and hydraulic conductivity and
2.3 Volume of water contained in wetted bulb chemical properties like EC, pH value, ESP, SAR, and
The total volume of the wetted soil and its shape status of nitrogen, potash and phosphate. The
under a trickle emitter varies widely with soil hydraulic physico-chemical characteristics of the study soils are
characteristics, number of emitters, discharge rate, and shown in Table 1. The saturated hydraulic conductivity
frequency of water application. The wetted-soil volume was determined to be 0.332 m d-1 33.2 cm d-1. The
needs to be determined keeping in view all the factors experimental site was slip ploughed to 1.5 m to
that affect its shape and volume, and thus help ensure that thoroughly mix the profile and eliminate any compacted
the wetted soil volume matches as closely as possible layers, then chiselled to 0.3 m, disked, and harrowed.
with crop rooting pattern. The volume of soil wetted
Table 1 Physico chemical characteristics of study soils
under point source trickle emitter is primarily a function
Sr. No Particulars Units Average
of the soil texture, soil structure, application rate and the 3
1 Bulk density kg m 1360
total volume of water applied (Lubana et al., 2002; 2 Specific gravity kg m 3
2500
Ekhmaj et al., 2005). The procedure of constructing the 3 Porosity % 49.72

wetted bulb may be considered accurate if the volume of 4 Field capacity % 28.00
5 Saturation percentage % 49.74
water contained in the wetted bulb is equal to the volume
6 Wilting point % 9.78
of water supplied. The volume of water supplied is Qt.
7 Hydraulic conductivity m d-1 0.332
Taking the cross-sectional area A = Rw2 at any time 8 ESP(1:2) % 4.50

interval and finding the average cross-sectional area, Aav 9 SAR(1:2) % 0.03
10 Phosphate kg hm-2 12.00
for the time interval and multiplying Aav with the
11 Nitrogen kg hm-2 210.00
incremental depth of infiltration, d, in the interval, one
12 Potash kg hm-2 450.00
finds the volume of water Vw between two circular strips 13 PH (1:2.25) 8.87
in the wetted bulb. The total volume of water in the 14 EC ds m-1 0.20

wetted bulb is then obtained as Vw.

At the end of each irrigation experiment, (24 h after
3 Materials and method
the end of the experiment) the soil around the emitter was
The accuracy of the model is validated by a) excavated to expose a vertical soil profile, and the
observing the parameters of the model on the field and b) distance of the wetting front was measured in the
 6 September, 2013 Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal Open access at http://www.cigrjournal.org Vol. 15, No.3

horizontal, and vertical downward, directions with the the model to reproduce the observed values and is
emitter in the centre. A coordinate system was expressed as:
established on the profile with the origin at the soil F
EC  (1  )  100 (10)
surface directly above the drip tubing. The soil surface F0
and profile face were covered with plastic sheeting to n
F   (Y0  YC ) 2 (11)
minimize evaporation. Each experiment was conducted i 1

in a different location of the same field, and involved n

infiltration from a single emitter. F0   (Y0  Y0 )2 (12)

i 1
Soil bulk density was determined at several locations
EC value of 90% generally indicates a very
in the soil profile. Bulk density measurements ranged
satisfactory model performance, while a value in the
from 1,320 to 1,400 kg m-3. There were no obvious
range of 80 to 90% indicate a fairly good model. EC
trends in the bulk density measurements, so an average
value in the range of 60% to 80% would indicate an
value of -1360 kg m-3 was used. The double ring
unsatisfactory model fit (Mallikarjuna et al., 2009).
infiltrometer set up was used to determine the infiltration
characteristics of the study soils. 5 Results and discussion

4 Model validation 5.1 Infiltration characteristics of the soil

The depth of infiltration obtained from the double
In order to validate the proposed model, the computed ring infiltrometer was fitted using Kostiakov equation.
wetted radius at different depths was compared with the The data obtained were plotted on a double log paper to
observed radius of spread from the experimental set up. obtain the slope and intercept. The equation for
The relative agreement of each computed wetted radius cumulative depth of infiltration for the study soil is
with the experimental data was evaluated using determined and is expressed as d = 0.5t0.45 (Figure 2).
coefficient of determination and efficiency coefficient. The goodness of fit was found to be 0.964. The value
A brief description of these performance criteria is given of k and n of the depth of infiltration was observed to be
below. 0.5 and 0.45 respectively. Differentiating the
4.1 Coefficient of determination cumulative depth with time yields the infiltration rate of
It is the square of correlation coefficient. It the study soil. The infiltration rate for the study soil is
measures the degree of association between the observed expressed as I = 0.225t-0.55. The value of a and b in the
and computed values and indicates the relative infiltration equation are found to be 0.225 and -0.55
assessment of model performance in dimensionless respectively.
measure. The correlation coefficient is expressed as:
n

 (Y 0  Y0 )(YC  YC )
R n
i 1
n
(9)
 (Y
i 1
0  Y0 ) 2
 (Y
i 1
C  Y0 ) 2

where, Y0 and YC are the observed and computed values

respectively; Y0 and YC are the mean of observed and
computed values; and n is the number of observations.
4.2 Efficiency coefficient
It is used to assess the performance of different Figure 2 Cumulative infiltration depth with time
models (Nash and Sutcliffe, 1970). It is a better choice
when calibration and verification periods have different 5.2 Radius of the wetted bulb on ground surface (rw)
lengths (Liang et al., 1994). It measures the ability of The radius of wetted soil volume must be known to
 September, 2013 Modeling for predicting soil wetting radius under point source surface trickle irrigation Vol. 15, No.3 7

decide spacing between emitters for a given set of soil The wetted width was affected by discharge rate of
and crop conditions. It also helps in characterizing emitter as well as duration of water application. This
optimum emitter spacing based on the geometry of the may be due to the increasing discharge rate, which
wetted soil volume and also helps in determining the increased the volume of water supplied in a given
length of the laterals. The observed rw as a function of duration that created higher volume of wetted soil zone.
3 -1 3 -1
time for three emitter flow rates 0.002 m h , 0.004 m h Increased duration of application also increased the
3 -1
and 0.008 m h for 60 min irrigation application time wetted volume.
was presented in Figures 3-5. It was observed during It is observed that the values of saturated entry radius
experiment, that the radial area of ponded water develops increase rapidly with time initially but then increase at a
in the vicinity of the drip emitters. The water infiltrates decreasing rate to limit the radius to a constant value, i.e,
from this saturated entry area into the soil. ultimate radius of saturated water entry zone. The
saturated radius was found to be 15.5 cm, 21.82 cm and
32.5 cm for discharge rates of 0.002 m3 h-1 , 0.004 m3 h-1
and 0.008 m3 h-1, respectively. The observed radius of
water pool on the ground surface as a function of time
could be fitted well with fourth order polynomial for all
discharges. Goodness of fit was good for all the emitter
flow rates.
5.3 Depth and radius of water pool below ground
surface (Rw)
Figure 3 Observed versus calculated radius of water pool on the
The observed and computed wetted bulb formed for
ground surface for 0.002 m3 h-1 emitter flow rate
0.002 m3 h-1 0.004 m3 h-1 and 0.008 m3 h-1 emitter
discharges were plotted in Figures 6-8. The
experimental data indicated that the rate of trickle
discharge and the hydraulic properties of the soil had a
remarkable effect on the shape of wetted soil zone.
Increasing the rate of discharge and decreasing the
saturated conductivity resulted in an increase in the
horizontal component of wetted area. The discrepancies
between the computed and measured wetting bulbs may
Figure 4 Observed versus calculated radius of water pool on the be due to variation in the size of surface source of water
ground surface for 0.004 m3 h-1 emitter flow rate during infiltration. It was observed that the depth was
found to be invariant with the emitter discharge. The
experimental observations supplement the model
(Equation (8)). This condition stands valid as far as
emitter flow rate is less than infiltration capacity of the
soil. Under such conditions, the depth attained by the
wetting front is mainly controlled by the irrigation time
rather than the application rate. As the emitter discharge
increases beyond the infiltration capacity of the soil the
Figure 5 Observed versus calculated radius of water pool on the horizontal component is increased and a narrower bulb
3 -1
ground surface for 0.008 m h emitter flow rate may be seen.
 8 September, 2013 Agric Eng Int: CIGR Journal Open access at http://www.cigrjournal.org Vol. 15, No.3

can be considered as satisfactory. The computed

cumulative volume with time can also be approximated
well with a polynomial equation of order four with
satisfactory values of goodness of fit for all emitter
discharges (Figure 9).

Figure 6 Observed versus calculated radius of water pool for

0.002 m3 h-1 emitter flow rate

Figure 9 Computed cumulative volume of water stored in the

wetted bulb for different discharges

5.5 Model validation

Figure 7 Observed versus calculated radius of water pool for
The prediction model (Equations (6) and (7)) was
0.004 m3 h-1 emitter flow rate
verified against the data obtained in the field and the
comparison is illustrated in Figures 3-8 for 0.002 m3 h-1 ,
0.004 m3 h-1 and 0.008 m3 h-1 emitter discharge rates.
Good agreement between simulated values and observed
values strengthens the confidence in the validity of the
model proposed to predict geometry of wetted soil zone
as a function of emitter discharge. The goodness of fit
of the equation above (Equation (6)) was 0.936, 0.927
and 0.944 respectively for 0.002 m3 h-1, 0.004 m3 h-1 and
0.008 m3 h-1 emitter discharges (Figures 3-5). The
Figure 8 Observed versus calculated radius of water pool for goodness of fit of Equation (7) was 0.916, 0.933 and
3 -1
0.008 m h emitter flow rate 0.928 respectively for 0.002 m3 h-1, 0.004 m3 h-1 and
0.008 m3 h-1 emitter discharges (Figures 6-8). The
5.4 Volume of water contained in the bulb efficiency of eq.6 was 92.7%, 93.4% and 91.8%
The details of calculations for obtaining the volume of respectively for 0.002 m3 h-1, 0.004 m3 h-1 and 0.008
3 -1
water stored in the wetted bulb for 0.002 m h , 0.004 m3 h-1 emitter discharges. The efficiency of Equation (7)
m3 h-1 and 0.008 m3 h-1 for an irrigation application of was 90.7%, 92.4% and 91.2% respectively for 0.002
one hour are shown in Figure 9. It is evident that the m3 h-1, 0.004 m3 h-1 and 0.008 m3 h-1 emitter discharges.
computed volume of water are close to the supplied
6 Conclusion
volume of 2,000, 4,000 and 8,000 cm3. Therefore, the
wetted bulb geometry predicted by the equations above 1) The radial water spread increases rapidly with time
 September, 2013 Modeling for predicting soil wetting radius under point source surface trickle irrigation Vol. 15, No.3 9

initially but then increases at a decreasing rate to limit the 4) High value of goodness of fit and efficiency
radius to a constant value, i.e., ultimate radius of strengthened the confidence in the validity of the model
saturated water entry zone. The observed saturated proposed to predict geometry of wetted soil zone as a
radius was found to be 14.6 cm, 16.9 cm and 18.4 cm for function of emitter discharge.
3 -1 3 -1
emitter discharges of 0.002 m h , 0.004 m h and 5) The wetted bulb geometry predicted by the
3 -1
0.008 m h , respectively. equations above can be considered as satisfactory as the
2) For a fixed time, radius of water pool is directly volume of water contained in the wetted bulb is equal to
1/2
proportional to Q . the volume of water supplied.
3) The depth of wetting front was found to be 6) The output of the developed model can be used to
invariant with emitter flow rate provided the emitter determine the geometry of wetted bulb from surface point
discharge is less than the infiltration capacity of the soil source irrigation for a particular discharge operating for a
in soils bounded with an impervious layer at the bottom . specific duration.

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