Numerical Investigation of Layered Soils Moisture Distributions under Linear Source Drip Irrigation

Designing and scheduling of drip irrigation systems are often done without enough information about water distribution in the soil. Due to tillage operations and crop production practices, agricultural soils can be considered as two layered soils with different bulk densities. The top soil layer has a lighter texture than the sub soil layer. In this research, the development of the wetting front and moisture distribution in a two-layered soil were investigated. The filed experiments were performed in the Tabriz University’s Research Farms, in order to determine the characteristics of the wetting patterns of drip irrigation under linear sources in a two layered soil. To study the effects of application duration and volume of water applied on the horizontal and vertical dimensions of wetting pattern, the experiments were conducted with four durations of 1, 3, 5, and 7 hours. The results showed that increasing the application duration increased the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the wetting patterns. But, after 5 hours, the application duration had no significant effect on the wetting pattern dimensions. In the subsoil layer, due to its heavy texture, vertical movement of the pattern was very slow and increase in the application duration more than 5 hours only caused increase in the volumetric moisture of the wetted soil. Using HYDRUS-2D model, the field experiments were simulated under the same conditions, too. The comparisons between model simulations and experimental results showed satisfactory agreement. According to the results, it can be demonstrated that the accuracy of HYDRUS- 2D in a two layered soil decreased when the wetting pattern reached the 2nd layer.