Abstract

Infiltration models are used in designing and optimizing irrigation projects as they are capable of predicting infiltration rate and accumulated infiltration depth to a reasonable level of accuracy. The objective of this study deals with obtaining the parameters of infiltration models like Kostiakov and Philip, applying these models to the soil of Dediapada and evaluating their performance by comparing it with the observed infiltration. Firstly, the accumulated infiltration and infiltration rates were determined by the field measurement using a double ring infiltrometer. Kostiakov’s and Philip’s infiltration models were then applied to obtain simulated data once its parameters were ascertained. The estimated parameters ‘m’ and ‘n’ for the Kostiakov model were 0.1311 and -0.3092 respectively and the corresponding equations obtained for estimating infiltration rate and accumulated infiltration depth were 0.13t-0.30 and 0.19t0.69. The estimated parameters ‘s’ and ‘k’ for the Philip model were 0.32 and 0.014 respectively and the corresponding equations obtained for estimating infiltration rate and accumulated infiltration depth were 0.16t-0.5+0.014 and 0.32t0.5+0.014t. The coefficient of determination values for evaluating the performance of the model were obtained in excess of 0.95 for both the models. Due to lack of research on the application of infiltration models on the clay loam soil of Dediapada, this study would prove to be useful for estimation of infiltration rate and depth.

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