Simulation model of water infiltration in soil using combination technique

Abstract

Due to the limited groundwater resources, the appropriate and optimal utilization of these resources is an imperative aspect of the hydrological cycle, hydrological studies, water conservation and management, implementation of irrigation and drainage projects, and control of soil erosion in watersheds. The objective of this paper was to accurately simulate soil water permeability. The findings demonstrated that the Philip mathematical models, as well as the Philip, Green-Ampt, and three-component Philip models, exhibited significant efficacy in simulating water permeability behavior in soil. However, like all modeling methods, these approaches are not without errors, despite their considerable capabilities. Consequently, several combined techniques, including SMA, WAM, MMSE, and M3SE, were employed to enhance the simulation of water infiltration in soil. Thus, the aim of this study was to ascertain the impact of different combination techniques on the level of simulation accuracy of various models. The outcomes revealed that all combined techniques, with the exception of M3SE, yielded improved results in terms of infiltration models and accuracy. Among the methods, the combined M3SE technique proved superior in clay loam, loam, and sandy loam soils, with error values of 0.007 cm, 0.012 cm, and 0.009 cm, respectively. However, in the context of soil physics and saturated conductivity, M3SE did not exhibit satisfactory performance, serving as one of the possible explanations. This investigation demonstrated that multi-model simulations surpass uncontrollable single-model simulations, even when utilizing the best-calibrated single-model simulations.