Infiltration from irrigation channels into soil with impermeable inclusions

Abstract

We consider the effect of impermeable inclusions on the infiltration of water from irrigation channels in a homogeneous soil. An expression for the matric flux potential throughout the soil is obtained in terms of a boundary integral equation. A Green's function derived by Basha [Water Resources Research, 30:2105--2118, 1994] is suitable for numerical calculations for this class of problems. This Green's function is employed in the boundary integral equation to obtain numerical values for the matric flux potential for a soil with embedded impermeable inclusions of various shapes. The numerical results indicate how impermeable inclusions may be used to effectively direct the flow from irrigation channels to particular regions below the soil surface.