NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF INFILTRATION AND SOLUTE TRANSPORT IN AN S-SHAPED MODEL BASIN BY A BOUNDARY-FITTED GRID SYSTEM

The boundary-fitted grid method, which transforms a complicated computational domain into a rectangular domain, is applied for the moisture and solute transport problems in the unsaturated soil layer of an S-shaped model hillslope. In the transformed domain, the fundamental equations of moisture and solute transport (i.e. the Richards equation and the Fickian equation) can be easily discretized into the finite-difference form. For three types of rainfall pattern (a unit rainfall, two-unit successive rainfalls and two unit rainfalls with a lag between them), hydrographs of total (pre-event and event water) and event water discharges, contour lines of soil moisture, pressure and total hydraulic head distributions, and flow velocity vectors are compared. For a relatively thick soil layer or for a relatively light rainfall, the capillary fringe effect plays an important role, whereas for a relatively thin soil layer or for a relatively heavy rainfall, overland flow from a variable source area is superimposed on the capillary-fringe-type runoff.