Moment Analysis for Modeling Soil Water Distribution in Furrow Irrigation: Variable vs. Constant Ponding Depths

Despite increasing use of pressurized irrigation methods, most projects worldwide still involve surface systems. Accurate estimation the amount infiltrating water and its spatial distribution in soil is great importance design management furrow Moment analysis has previously been applied to describe subsurface using input data from numerical simulations rather than field measured data, assuming a constant ponding depth furrow. A experiment was conducted blocked-end level at Maricopa Agricultural Center, Arizona, USA, study effect time-variable depths on resulting wetting bulb under real conditions moment analysis. The simulated volumetric contents run with variable (average) HYDRUS 2D/3D were almost identical, both compared favorably data. Hence, only used calculate moments. It concluded that fluctuating flow had no significant influence time-evolving ellipses. This related negligible 10-cm variation high negative matric potential unsaturated soil.