A Mass Conservative Method for Integrating 1-D Vadose Zone Simulations Discretized in the Moisture Content Domain with 2-D Groundwater Interflow Simulations

Abstract:

Discretizing 1-D vadose zone simulations in the moisture content domain, such as is done in the Talbot-Ogden method, provides some advantages over discretizing in depth, such as is done in Richards' Equation. These advantages include inherent mass conservation and lower computational cost. However, doing so presents a difficulty for integration with 2-D groundwater interflow simulations. The equations of motion of the bins of discrete moisture content take the depth of the water table as an input. They do not produce it as an output. Finding the correct water table depth so that the groundwater recharge from the 1-D vadose zone simulation mass balances with the lateral flows from the 2-D groundwater interflow simulation was a previously unsolved problem. In this paper we present a net-groundwater-recharge method to solve to this problem and compare it with the source-term method used with Richards' Equation.