An empirical model for estimation of capillary rise from a shallow groundwater table in cropped soil

Abstract

The present study investigates the performance of six pre-existing models to estimate the capillary rise from a shallow groundwater table using data from the lysimeters experiment. Essential parameters for estimating capillary rise were observed for nine crop species, i.e., Wheat, Indian mustard, Potato, Maize, Sorghum, Guar, Pea, Spinach, and Tomato. Based on a comparative evaluation, Modified Averianov Formula showed better agreement between the observed and estimated capillary rise than other evaluated models. However, its performance was not satisfactory. An empirical model comprising soil-crop-climatic variables for estimating the capillary rise is proposed using experimental data on nine crop species. Further, the performance of the proposed model was compared with pre-existing models and the observed capillary rise for three crop species, i.e., Wheat, Maize, and Pea. The values of R2, NSE, and MBE ranged between 0.82 to 0.85, 0.80 to 0.83, and −0.07 to 0.11, respectively for Wheat, Maize, and Pea, indicating good agreement between observed and the proposed model estimated values.