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ARS Home » Plains Area » Temple, Texas » Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #188637
Title: Modeling the effects of deep chiseling with DRAINMOD for alluvial soils

Author
item Moriasi, Daniel
item Fouss, James
item BENGTSON, R - LSU

Submitted to: Transactions of the ASABE
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/15/2007
Publication Date: 1/15/2007
Citation: Moriasi, D.N., Fouss, J.L., Bengtson, R.L. 2007. Modeling the effects of deep chiseling with DRAINMOD for alluvial soils. Transactions of the ASABE. 50(2):543-556.

Interpretive Summary: DRAINMOD is a computer-based drainage model that has been widely used in the shallow water table regions of the US including southeastern US to simulate surface runoff, infiltration and drainage volume. However, DRAINMOD does not accurately predict these components for the surface- seal-formation prone alluvial soils that are the predominant soils in much of the southeastern US. In this study, DRAINMOD was modified to improve the prediction of simulate surface runoff, infiltration and drainage volume. Three modified DRAINMOD models, DRAINMOD-STMAX, DRAINMOD-Ks and DRAINMOD-Ks-STMAX, were established. In general, DRAINMOD-STMAX, DRAINMOD-Ks, and DRAINMOD-Ks-STMAX model improved surface runoff prediction by 57%, 73%, and 82%, respectively in1995/96 season, and by 27%, 45%, and 62%, respectively in 1996/97 season.

Technical Abstract: DRAINMOD is a drainage model that has been widely used in the shallow water table regions of the US including southeastern US. Therefore, it is important that DRAINMOD realistically simulate surface runoff, infiltration and drainage volume for the surface-seal-formation prone alluvial soils that are the predominant soils in much of the southeastern US. In this study the DRAINMOD model was modified to address the problems associated with the assumption of constant vertical saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) and constant maximum surface depressional storage (STMAX) for these alluvial soils. The first objective was to modify DRAINMOD version 5.1 to incorporate the effects of deep chiseling (Ks and STMAX vary) in order to improve its estimation or prediction of infiltration and surface runoff. The second objective was to evaluate the modified DRAINMOD models with dynamic Ks and STMAX subroutines (DRAINMOD-Ks, DRAINMOD-STMAX and the combined DRAINMOD-Ks-STMAX), using two years (Sept 1995 to Nov 1996 and Nov 1996 to Nov 1997 when deep chiseling was carried out) of measured surface runoff data from the USDA-ARS Ben Hur Research Field Site located 5km south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Simulations by DRAINMOD version 5.1 were compared with those by DRAINMOD-Ks, DRAINMOD-STMAX and DRAINMOD-Ks-STMAX to further determine the effect of the modifications on surface runoff and infiltration predictions. In general, the DRAINMOD-STMAX, DRAINMOD-Ks and DRAINMOD-Ks-STMAX model improved surface runoff prediction by 57%, 73%, and 82%, respectively in 1995/96 season, and by 27%, 45%, and 62%, respectively in 1996/97 season.