External Iterative Coupling Strategy for Surface-Subsurface Flow Calculations in Surface Irrigation

• Published in: Journal of irrigation and drainage engineering Vol. 136; no. 10; pp. 692 - 703
• Main Authors: Bautista, E, Zerihun, D, Clemmens, A. J, Strelkoff, T. S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Reston, VA American Society of Civil Engineers 01-10-2010
• Subjects: Agricultural and forest climatology and meteorology. Irrigation. Drainage; Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions; Biological and medical sciences; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General agronomy. Plant production; Irrigation. Drainage; TECHNICAL PAPERS; Computational fluid dynamics; Irrigation systems; Simulation models; Hydraulics; Porous medium; Unsteady flow; Porous media flow; Surface irrigation; Computational fluid dynamics technique; Porous medium flow; Underground flow; Simulation model; Surface flow
• ISSN: 0733-9437; 1943-4774
• DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)IR.1943-4774.0000248

Coupling the unsteady open-channel flow equations of surface irrigation with the equation of variably saturated porous media flow is a computationally complex problem because of the dependence of infiltration on surface-flow depths. Several models of this coupled process have been developed, all of which solve the surface and subsurface flow iteratively at each time step of the surface-flow solution. This study presents an alternative strategy, in which stand-alone surface and subsurface-flow models are used to conduct the calculations sequentially and iteratively at the time level of the irrigation event. At each iteration, the subsurface-flow results are computed using the surface-flow depths generated by the surface-flow model at the current iteration. Infiltration results computed at selected computational nodes are fitted to an empirical infiltration function, and then fed back to the surface-flow model. The proposed strategy, labeled external iterative coupling, was prototyped for border and basin irrigation systems using the WinSRFR and HYDRUS-1D models. The proposed procedure produced irrigation performance results comparable to those generated with an internally coupled model, even when using a single representative location to calibrate the empirical infiltration equation used by the surface-flow model. In comparison with models that iterate at each time step, the proposed coupling strategy reduces the computational effort and improves convergence. The approach provides a practical alternative for coupling existing and future surface and subsurface flow models.