Comparison of Wetting Front Advancing Method and Instantaneous Profile Method for the Hydraulic Conductivity Measurements

Abstract

Wetting front advancing method is of lower cost and faster experimental progress for measuring the unsaturated hydraulic conductivities. In this paper, a new method is proposed to identify the wetting front, in which the monitored data is used to infer wetting front. Data analysis of three column tests reported by earlier scholar proves that the new method is applicable. Wetting front advancing method can be used to analyze wetting column test data and offer high quality results of unsaturated hydraulic conductivities. The limitation of a clear wetting front that can be observed is not necessary. The remove of this limitation will greatly expand the applicability of the wetting front advancing method.