Coupling water, solute, and sediment transport into a new computationally efficient hydrologic model

Authors: CHEN, LIN - University Of California, Riverside; ŠIMUNEK, JIRÍ - University Of California, Riverside; Bradford, Scott; AJAMI, HOORI - University Of California, Riverside; Meles, Menberu

Submitted to: Journal of Hydrology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/3/2023
Publication Date: 11/20/2023
Citation: Chen, L., Šimunek, J., Bradford, S.A., Ajami, H., Meles, M.B. 2023. Coupling water, solute, and sediment transport into a new computationally efficient hydrologic model. Journal of Hydrology. 628. Article 130495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.130495.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2023.130495

Interpretive Summary: Transport of pollutants in runoff water and through soils greatly affects surface water and groundwater quality. Computer models are useful tools to understand and predict contaminant fate, but existing models are not very efficient and require long run times, especially at large scales. A faster model was developed by coupling existing one-dimensional models for erosion and pollutant transport in runoff and soils. The developed model was used to simulate pollution transport in runoff and soils, and showed good agreement with mathematic solutions, experimental data, and a two-dimensional model. The coupled model therefore shows great promise for simulating contaminant transport at large scales. Results from this study will be interest to scientists, engineers, and government regulators concerned with predicting contaminant transport at the watershed scale.

Technical Abstract: While surface-subsurface interactions strongly impact water quality and quantity in ecosystems, only relatively little attention has been given to solute mass transfers at this boundary. The KINEROS2 (K2) model solves the 1D kinematic wave equation for water flow and the advection-dispersion equation for non-absorbing solute (or sediment) transport at the surface, whereas the HYDRUS-1D (H1D) model solves the Richards equation for flow and the advection-dispersion equation for solute transport in the subsurface. We previously coupled water flow in the surface and subsurface environments using the K2 and H1D models (H1D-K2). Herein, an innovative framework was developed to additionally couple solute transport at the surface-subsurface boundary in the simple, accurate, and computationally efficient H1D-K2 model. To test the H1D-K2 model’s accuracy and robustness, simulation results are compared to analytical solutions, experimental data, and results from the two-dimensional HYDRUS-2D (H2D) code. The relative differences in water and solute balance components between the H2D and H1D-K2 models are less than 1% for homogeneous cases and 4% for heterogeneous cases. The simulated hydrograph and chemograph are almost identical for the two models. Furthermore, simulated Bromide (Br) concentration in runoff is in good agreement with observations. The proposed model also accurately reproduces soil erosion under different rainfall patterns and intensities.