Nurkholis et al. (2025) Evaluating Richards Equation and Infiltration Capacity Approaches in Mesoscale Hydrologic Modeling

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Identification

• Journal: Water Resources Research
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-07-30
• Authors: Afid Nurkholis, Thomas Kalbacher, Oldřich Rakovec, Friedrich Boeing, Matthias Cuntz, Luis Samaniego
• DOI: 10.1029/2024wr039625

Research Groups

Not specified in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study compares the 1D Richards Equation (RE) and the Infiltration Capacity (IC) scheme for modeling soil moisture in the mHM model, finding that while both predict streamflow similarly, the RE approach better captures deep soil moisture dynamics.

Objective

• To evaluate the performance and parameter transferability of the 1D Richards Equation versus the Infiltration Capacity scheme for soil moisture infiltration modeling at mesoscale resolutions.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Mesoscale (hundreds to thousands of meters), encompassing 201 basins in Germany.
• Temporal Scale: Not specified.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: mHM (multiscale Hydrological Model), 1D Richards Equation (RE), and Infiltration Capacity (IC) scheme.
• Data sources: Streamflow data, in situ soil moisture observations (at depths of 0–0.25 m, 0.25–0.60 m, and 0–0.60 m), and three distinct pedo-transfer functions (PTFs) for parameterization via Multiscale Parameter Regionalization (MPR).

Main Results

• Streamflow: Both mHM-IC and mHM-RE variants show comparable performance in predicting streamflow.
• Soil Moisture: The mHM-RE variant provides superior capture of soil moisture dynamics, particularly in deeper soil layers, due to its capacity for two-way flux.
• IC Limitations: The IC scheme frequently leads to saturation at depth, although it remains effective at capturing soil moisture anomalies.
• Parameterization: The use of MPR allows for the spatial transferability of parameters derived from PTFs for the RE approach.

Contributions

• Demonstrates that the computationally demanding 1D Richards Equation can be effectively implemented at mesoscale resolutions using MPR and PTFs, providing a more robust simulation of soil moisture states than the simpler IC scheme without sacrificing streamflow accuracy.

Funding

Not specified in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Nurkholis2025Evaluating,
  author = {Nurkholis, Afid and Kalbacher, Thomas and Rakovec, Oldřich and Boeing, Friedrich and Cuntz, Matthias and Samaniego, Luis},
  title = {Evaluating Richards Equation and Infiltration Capacity Approaches in Mesoscale Hydrologic Modeling},
  journal = {Water Resources Research},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1029/2024wr039625},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2024wr039625}
}