Papers published in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Discussions are under open-access review for the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Abstract In the context of studies aiming at the estimation of effective parameters for unsaturated zone modelling, this work tackles the problem of experimental data quality, considering the large collection of data gathered at an experimental sit...

A two-dimensional finite element model is proposed to simulate transient seepage for complex groundwater flow systems. The complete soil system is treated as a continuum encompassing flow in both saturated and unsaturated zones. In the unsaturated zone, the air phase is assumed to be continuous and open to atmospheric pressure. The coefficient of permeability of the unsaturated soil is assumed ...

A simple conceptual water balance model representing the streamflow generation processes on a daily time step following land use change is presented. The model consists of five stores: (i) Dry, Wet and Subsurface Stores for vertical and lateral water flow, (ii) a transient Stream zone Store (iii) a saturated Goundwater Store. The soil moisture balance in the top soil Dry and Wet Stores are the ...

By employing chemical and isotopic tracers ((15)N and (18)O in NO(3)(-)), we investigated the main processes controlling nitrate distribution in the unsaturated zone and aquifer. Soil water was extracted from two soil cores drilled in a typical agricultural cropping area of the North China Plain (NCP), where groundwater was also sampled. The results indicate that evaporation and denitrification...

Gas invasion in liquid-saturated sands exhibits different morphologies and dynamics. For mobile beds, the repeated rise of gas through the layer leads to the growth of a fluidized zone, which reaches a stationary shape. Here, we present experimental results characterizing the evolution of the fluidized region as a function of the gas-flow rate and grain size. We introduce a new observable, the ...

Chlorofluorocarbons CFC-11 (CCl(3)F), CFC-12 (CCl(2)F(2)), and CFC-113 (CCl(2)F-CClF(2)) are used in hydrology as transient tracers under the assumption of conservative behavior in the unsaturated and saturated soil zones. However, laboratory and field studies have shown that these compounds are not stable under anaerobic conditions. To determine the degradation rates of CFCs in a tropical envi...