Determination of Brooks-Corey soil hydraulic parameters through vertical infiltration experiments

A new method is proposed for estimating soil hydraulic parameters in the Brooks-Corey model.The method uses only one-dimensional vertical infiltration experiments,thus,measurement of saturated hydraulic conductivity is not required.The method is tested in two soil textures in Fengqiu County.The result shows that the Brooks-Corey soil parameters estimated by the new method are quite comparable to those of using the horizontal absorption method when the gravitational potential is balanced by the matric potential(capillary potential) and the soil stays wet long enough.Using the estimated parameters,the infiltration process simulated by the Brooks-Corey model is in good agreement with the observation.The new method saves time and effort,and can help to avoid the numerical dispersion problems as well as multiple solutions compared to other methods such as the horizontal absorption method and the inverse parameter method.