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www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/3/1339/2006/
doi:10.5194/hessd-3-1339-2006
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Simplified stochastic soil moisture models: a look at infiltration
1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, Durham NC, USA
Abstract. A simplified, vertically averaged model of soil moisture interpreted at the daily time scale and forced by a stochastic process of instantaneous rainfall events is compared with a model which uses a non-overlapping rectangular pulse rainfall model and a more physically based description of infiltration. The models are compared with respect to the importance of short time-scale (intra-storm) variable infiltration in determining soil moisture dynamics at the daily time-scale. Differences in approach to infiltration modelling show only minor effects on the probabilistic structure of soil moisture dynamics as simulated in the two models. Examining closely the partitioning of losses during a rainfall event reveals that losses to percolation are significantly greater than that of Hortonian runoff. A possible improvement of the instantaneous rainfall model to incorporate a jump distribution with a state dependent mean is also discussed.
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Citation: Rigby, J. and Porporato, A.: Simplified stochastic soil moisture models: a look at infiltration, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 3, 1339-1367, doi:10.5194/hessd-3-1339-2006, 2006. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
