Analysis of Infiltration and Runoff in an Olive Orchard under No-Till

Four infiltration techniques (falling head, ring, rainfall, and tension infiltrometer) were used to determine the saturated hydraulic conductivity, K s , and the wetting potential front, h l , of the Green-Ampt model. Water release curves from soil cores were also used for estimating h f . The objective was to compare the performance of the different techniques for the assessment of infiltration in a no-tillage olive (Olea europaea L. subsp. europaea) orchard. Measurements were performed in two areas of the orchard, below canopy (C) and interrow among trees (IR). With the exception of the tension infiltrometer, all techniques showed significant differences in K, and At between C and IR areas, attributed to different compaction. Differences in K s among techniques were within the range observed previously. The At estimated from the falling-head technique was significantly higher than that measured with the other techniques. The discrepancies in the results obtained with the tension infiltrometer were attributed to insufficient time of measurement, leading to recommendations for a different field procedure and analysis of this technique. To assess the use of the techniques described above for the characterization of plot infiltration, rainfall and runoff were measured in a 128-m 2 plot. A numerical model was then used to predict runoff using the infiltration measurements. The results showed that runoff prediction is improved when different values of K, and h f are considered for the C and IR areas instead of a single average value. The numerical analysis of the effects of tree arrangement on runoff prediction from infiltration measurements indicated that if the trees were placed along the contour lines, runoff would decrease relative to the standard tree arrangement.

[1]  W. Green,et al.  Studies on Soil Phyics. , 1911, The Journal of Agricultural Science.

[2]  L. A. Richards.  Capillary conduction of liquids through porous mediums , 1931 .

[3]  J. Philip,et al.  THE THEORY OF INFILTRATION: 4. SORPTIVITY AND ALGEBRAIC INFILTRATION EQUATIONS , 1957 .

[4]  J. Philip,et al.  The Theory of Infiltration , 1958 .

[5]  Hydraulic Properties of Disturbed Soil Materials Affected by Porosity 1 , 1967 .

[6]  Curtis L. Larson,et al.  Modeling infiltration during a steady rain , 1973 .

[7]  H. J. Morel-Seytoux,et al.  Derivation of an equation of infiltration , 1974 .

[8]  Mark Reeves,et al.  Estimating infiltration for erratic rainfall , 1975 .

[9]  D. L. Brakensiek,et al.  Estimating the effective capillary pressure in the Green and Ampt Infiltration Equation , 1977 .

[10]  J. Parlange,et al.  A parameter‐efficient hydrologic infiltration model , 1978 .

[11]  G. R. Foster,et al.  Conversion of the universal soil loss equation to SI metric units , 1981 .

[12]  W. B. Voorhees,et al.  Unsaturated Water Flow Through a Simulated Wheel Track 1 , 1981 .

[13]  C. A. Onstad,et al.  Depressional Storage on Tilled Soil Surfaces , 1984 .

[14]  N. R. Fausey,et al.  Effect of Sample Cross-Sectional Area on Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity in Tow Structured Clay Soils , 1985 .

[15]  Tipping bucket flow measurements on erosion plots , 1986 .

[16]  M. J. Sully,et al.  Macroscopic and microscopic capillary length and time scales from field infiltration , 1987 .

[17]  I. White,et al.  Designs for disc permeameters , 1988 .

[18]  Use and Hydrological Robustness of Time-to-Incipient-Ponding , 1989 .

[19]  W. Rawls,et al.  Estimation of Soil Water Retention and Hydraulic Properties , 1989 .

[20]  C. Ciesiolka,et al.  Modelling hydrology of agricultural catchments using parameters derived from rainfall simulator data , 1991 .

[21]  Mushtaque Ahmed,et al.  Simple field method for determining unsaturated hydraulic conductivity , 1991 .

[22]  A. Warrick.  Models for disc infiltrometers , 1992 .

[23]  Ali Saleh,et al.  Soil roughness measurement: Chain method , 1993 .

[24]  J. Philip.  Approximate analysis of falling-head lined borehole permeameter , 1993 .

[25]  A. Warrick,et al.  Alternative analyses of hydraulic data from disc tension infiltrometers , 1993 .

[26]  D. Jaynes,et al.  Methodology for determining hydraulic conductivity with tension infiltrometers , 1993 .

[27]  G. J. Wall,et al.  COMPARISON OF SATURATED HYDRAULIC CONDUCTIVITY MEASURED BY VARIOUS FIELD METHODS , 1993 .

[28]  STEADY‐STATE INFILTRATION AS A FUNCTION OF MEASUREMENT SCALE , 1994 .

[29]  Ramesh S. Kanwar,et al.  Comparison of Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity Measurement Methods for a Glacial-Till Soil , 1994 .

[30]  R. Allmaras,et al.  Effects of Compaction on Soil Hydraulic Properties , 1994 .

[31]  B. Mohanty,et al.  Spatial analysis of hydraulic conductivity measured using disc infiltrometers , 1994 .

[32]  J. Morin,et al.  The surface infiltration model , 1995 .

[33]  D. C. Kincaid.  Spraydrop kinetic energy from irrigation sprinklers , 1996 .

[34]  Renduo Zhang.  Infiltration Models for the Disk Infiltrometer , 1997 .

[35]  R. Haverkamp,et al.  Prediction of Crust-Induced Surface Runoff with Disc Infiltrometer Data , 1998 .

[36]  K. Vanderlinden,et al.  Evaluation of infiltration measurements under olive trees in Córdoba , 1998 .

[37]  Renduo Zhang.  Estimating soil hydraulic conductivity and macroscopic capillary length from the disk infiltrometer , 1998 .

[38]  Bofu Yu,et al.  An assessment of methods for estimating runoff rates at the plot scale , 1998 .

[39]  E. Fereres,et al.  Effects of tillage method on soil physical properties, infiltration and yield in an olive orchard , 1999 .

[40]  Juan Vicente Giráldez,et al.  Rainfall interception by olive trees in relation to leaf area , 2001 .