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Seepage Through Soil Bedding or a Hillside Due to a Steady Rainfall: II. Soil Surface of Arbitrary Shape¹

ABSTRACT

In a companion paper (I), the authors presented a theoretical solution for the seepage of steady rainfall through soil bedding or a hillside, with constant slope soil surface. In the present work, the case of an arbitrarily shaped soil surface is investigated. Two different shapes for the soil surface are considered in detail. The first shape is taken as part of the boundary of an ellipse, and the second is an arbitrary shape that includes ponded water-depressions. The depth of water standing in the ponded depressions and drainage furrows is taken into account. Flow nets, seepage velocities, and infiltration rates are determined. As in paper I, but now for the new conditions, the seepage patterns show that some of the rainwater seeps into the soil on the uphill part of the slope and then flows through the soil more or less parallel to the soil surface. The water then seeps upward out of the soil on the downhill part of the slope. In one example, the inward and then outward flow occurs three times. With an elliptical shaped water table, the upward seepage occurs over a smaller portion of the bedding than for rectilinear (constant slope) bedding. The in and out seepage of water may cause leaching of nutrients and other chemicals from the soil.

¹ Journal Paper J-7001 of the Iowa Agr. & Home Econ. Exp. Sta., Ames, Iowa 50010. Projects 1870 and 1888. Research supported in part by the US Dep. of Interior, Office of Water Resources Research under P.L. 88-379 through project B-019-IA.

² Postdoctoral Fellow and Professor of Agronomy, Iowa State University of Science & Technology, Ames.

Received for publication August 16, 1971. Accepted for publication January 7, 1972.