Abstract
The effect of spatial heterogeneity in soil and rainfall characteristics on the infiltration response of catchments is studied. Quasi-analytical expressions are derived for the statistics of the ponding time and the infiltration rate for two cases: (i) spatially variable soils and uniform rainfall, and (ii) constant soil properties and spatially variable rainfall. The derivations show that the cumulative ponding time distribution is a critical variable which governs the mean and covariance of the infiltration process. This distribution determines the proportion of the catchment which is soil controlled and the proportion which is rainfall controlled. The heterogeneity of the infiltration response, part being rainfall controlled and part soil controlled, causes a temporal variation in the correlograms. Over time, the correlation of the infiltration goes from the correlogram of the rainfall (at initial time) to that of the soil properties (at large time).
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Sivapalan, M., Wood, E.F. (1986). Spatial Heterogeneity and Scale in the Infiltration Response of Catchments. In: Gupta, V.K., Rodríguez-Iturbe, I., Wood, E.F. (eds) Scale Problems in Hydrology. Water Science and Technology Library, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4678-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4678-1_5
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