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Heat And Water Transport In Soils And Across The Soil-Atmosphere Interface: 2. Numerical Analysis, Jan Vanderborght, Thomas Fetzer, Klaus Mosthaf, Kathleen M. Smits, Rainer Helmig

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

In an accompanying paper, we presented an overview of a wide variety of modeling concepts, varying in complexity, used to describe evaporation from soil. Using theoretical analyses, we explained the simplifications and parameterizations in the different approaches. In this paper, we numerically evaluate the consequences of these simplifications and parameterizations. Two sets of simulations were performed. The first set investigates lateral variations in vertical fluxes, which emerge from both homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media, and their importance to capturing evaporation behavior. When evaporation decreases from parts of the heterogeneous soil surface, lateral flow and transport processes in the free flow …