A spatialized overland flow approach for the modelling of

large macropores influence on water infiltration

J. Lonard1,3, M. Esteves2, E. Perrier1 & G. de Marsily3
1
IRD, Laboratoire dInformatique Applique, 32, avenue Henri Varagnat, 93143, Bondy,
France
2
IRD, Laboratoire dHydrologie, BP 1386, Dakar, Sngal
3
Universit Paris 6, Laboratoire de Gologie Applique, 4, place Jussieu, 75252, Paris,
France

Abstract
Termites activity has a great influence on infiltration in the Sahelian zone through the
construction of galleries opened to the soil surface in which water penetrates. However,
although significant, the effect of termites is highly variable and difficult to explain in term
of termites activity. We developed a modelling approach to simulate and study the influence
of a population of termites-made large macropores on infiltration. Models dealing with the
influence of macropores on infiltration have been mainly concerned by the description of
water flow in the soil matrix and in the macropores, and by the infiltration process acting
into the soil, at the interface between the macropore and the soil matrix. A significantly
lower attention has been paid to the processes by which a macropore is supplied with water.
We modelled spatial distribution of runoff on an infiltrating topographical surface, using the
2D shallow water equations, in which we added a new coupled component to predict the
quantity of water entering a macropore from its characteristics and the depth-velocity fields.
Laboratory experiments were designed to compare observed and simulated flow entering a
macropore for various flow rates and to test this new modelling approach. The model was
then applied to a realistic topographical surface (1m2 field experimental plot). We showed
that although the global effect of a population of macropores depends on the number of
macropores per unit surface, the rainfall intensity, flow to macropores is strongly dependent
on their position in space and their spatial organisation, through the topography and the
spatial distribution of water depths and velocities.
Keywords: overland flow, infiltration, macropores, spatialized modelling

Introduction
We are interested in the modelling of the influence on water infiltration of a population of
macropores, superimposed to the soil, on a complex topography and at a one to several
square meters scale. This study is motivated by our knowledge about the influence of termite
activity on infiltrability in the Sahelian zone (Lonard & Rajot, 1997). We observed that
termites, by creating galleries open to the soil surface, were able to improve infiltration ratio
from about 20% to 30-70%. The results are however highly variable and are difficult to
explain in term of termites activity. To study and better understand the termites effect and its
variability, a modelling approach is developed to simulate, within a wide range of flow
conditions, overland flow and infiltration with different macropores spatial distributions,
densities or diameters on various soil types. In this paper we present first our modelling
approach and the way a new coupled model is obtained by adding a macropore flow
component to an overland flow model. Then, after some tests, we use the model to carry out
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some simulations on a realistic topographical surface and to analyse the influence of the
spatial distribution and density of macropores on infiltration.

What kind of modelling approach ?

The influence of large macropores on infiltration can be splitted into two different although
coupled processes: their infiltration capacity and the way they are supplied with water. The
well-known dual-porosity flow approach (van Genuchten & Gerke, 1992) have been mainly
concerned by the description of water flow in the soil matrix and in the macropores, and by
the infiltration process acting into the soil, at the interface between macropores and the soil
matrix. This has led to a somewhat large variety of applications, from a simplified threedimensional local scale method restricted to a single macropore with radial symmetry
(Edwards et al., 1979), to more or less conceptual approaches based on the two-domains
assumption and applied to larger scales : Beven & Germann (1981), Beven & Clarke (1986),
Gerke & van Genuchten (1993), and others.
A significantly lower attention has been paid to the processes by which a macropore is
supplied with water, processes that are crucial, because beyond the actual importance of
infiltration capacity, we have to know the quantity of water that can enter a macropore. This
quantity depends on macropore position in space, through the topography and the spatial
distribution of water depths and velocities (Dunne et al., 1991), on its diameter, and it also
depends on rainfall intensity (Edwards et al., 1992 ; Trojan & Linden, 1992 ; Quisenberry et
al., 1994). When integrated, the global effect of a population of macropores depends on the
number of macropores per unit surface, on the characteristics of their spatial distribution
(uniform, aggregated). An overland flow model should be used if we want to take into
account the processes governing the way macropores are supplied by water. Ruan &
Illangasekare (1998) have developed a model coupling overland flow and infiltration with
macropores. However the spatial distribution of macropores is not explicitly integrated in
their model. Macropore flow evolves with variations of the ponding area that is related to the
average ponding depth. With this kind of conceptualisation it is not possible to estimate the
influence of microtopographic surface variation which we think to be of great importance.

The overland flow model

We developed a model that can simulate overland flow on a topographical surface, under
complex rainfall events, with variable soil hydraulic characteristics (Green & Ampt soil-crust
sub-model as regards infiltration) and roughness (Esteves et al., 1999). A macropore
component was added to the model and enables the surimposition of macropores to the soil,
with given position and diameter, and to calculate the flow into macropores. This last
component is described in further details in the next section.
Overland flow is simulated by a numerical solution (MacCormack second order finite
difference scheme) of the two-dimensional shallow water equations, also referred to as the
2D St. Venant equations. We add to the continuity equation (1) a source term for rainfall and
a sink term for infiltration in the soil and in the macropores, so the equations assume the
following form:

(1)
(2a)
2

(2b)
where h is the water depth, u and v the x and y component of velocity, U the velocity, r the
rainfall intensity, i the infiltration intensity, Qm the macropore flux intensity, z the surface
elevation, f the Darcy-Weisbach friction factor, and g the acceleration due to gravity.
In the context of our application, there are water depths of the order of magnitude of
the topographical amplitude, widespread ponding, low slopes. Kinematic wave models are
therefore excluded (Vieira, 1983). A diffusion type model including the pressure term is at
least required but we have chosen to use the complete dynamic model. This set of equations
has proved to be efficient to describe shallow overland flow on a variable topography (Garcia
& Kahawita, 1986; Zhang and Cundy, 1989 ; Fennema & Chaudhry, 1990 ; Tayfur et al.,
1993). A one-dimensional implementation of the code has been done to study some of its
properties and to do classical tests, like the dam-break problem, for which an analytical
solution exists. The general behaviour of the model is good. Some non-physical oscillations
are produced in strong gradient zones, which are characteristics of second order schemes and
are minimised by using an optimal time step rather than a very small one. The main problem
is however that the topography and friction terms behave as source terms in the momentum
equation (2) and alter the conservation properties of Uh. This phenomena is minimised using
a smoothed topographical surface (Tayfur et al., 1993), but it still appears with high fluxes in
transitory regime.

The macropore flow model

Macropores are added to the model as a separate information, superimposed to that
concerning the soil. They are modelled as circular holes. The diameter of the hole is small
comparing to dx or dy. The coupling with the overland flow model is achieved by including
in the continuity equation (1) a sink term due to the infiltration flux in the macropores. A
potential infiltration flux is computed as a function of the local depth and velocity
fields when the hole is not submerged:

(3)
where R is the macropore radius. It results from our physical interpretation of water fluxes in
a local 2-dimensional planar approximation of the topographical surface around the hole.
This equation reduces to Qmp1=2RUh when velocity is uni-directional, which is intuitively
correct. When the macropore is submerged the flow rate is predicted using the following
equation derived from application of the Bernouilli theorem :
(4)
C is a constant that is equal to 1 if the fluid sticks to the wall, is the depth at which pressure
reaches again an atmospheric value. We do not know when the macropore become
submerged, so we test for the minimum of Qmp1 and Qmp2, and after that we again test to see
if Qmp is not superior to the potential infiltration capacity of the macropore if any. The
potential infiltration capacity of macropores is not explicitly modelled and we use statistical
means of individual macropore infiltration capacity measurements for field applications.
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A laboratory experiment was designed to compare observed and simulated flow

entering a macropore for various flow rates (figure 1) :

Figure 1. The laboratory experiment.

The flow is introduced upstream from an inclined plane of known slope . We measure the
mean water depth, the mean velocity and the discharge from the macropore. The roughness
coefficient is estimated under uniform flow assumption using :

(5)
The estimation of f allows to ensure that, if there is no hole, the mean water depth and the
mean velocity are exactly the same in the experiment and in the simulation. Experiments and
simulations were done for 16 different flow rates (Q) in the same conditions (=0.0125,
R=0.5 cm, l=24 cm).
Figure 2 shows observed and simulated macropore flow rates without any calibration.
The flow in the macropore is correctly predicted in the linear part of the curve. The
macropore becomes submerged in the simulation at an imposed upstream flux of about 8
cm2/s, a little bit sooner than in the experiment. In the upper part of the curve, macropore
flow is well predicted, it is however highly dependant on the accuracy with which the
diameter is known, due to the dependence on R2 in eq. (4). In the lower part of the curve, the
model results are not so good because they do not integrate the complex effects of surface
tension and air-water-soil contact angle that limit macropore flow. When we make the slope
varying in the experiment, we observe that macropore flow greatly increases for slopes
decreasing toward 0, and that it only slowly decreases for slopes increasing toward high
values. Simulations permitted to reproduce this behaviour.

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Measured macropore flow
Computed macropore flow

qm (cm /s)

0
0

10

15

20

Q / l = Uh (cm /s)

Figure 2. Comparison of observed and computed macropore flow rates.

These satisfactory results validate to some extend our coupled flow model, which can
be now used to test more complex flow behaviour in realistic conditions.

Macropores density and spatial distribution influence on infiltration

From in-situ experimental results it is difficult to establish a link between the density of
macropores and the effect on infiltration. We could expect no clear relation for low density,
because macropores can be well or ill positioned, while, the higher the density, the
higher the probability that at least some of the macropores will be positioned in the few
favourable zones increases, and we can expect to reach a threshold above which infiltration
is always better, but again no clearly related to the density. We will not present here an
extensive study of the effect of macropore density on infiltration, we will rather try to show
that the presented model is very useful to do so by showing some examples.
Effect of macropore density on runoff and infiltration
This first example deals with the simulation of overland flow on a 1m2 plot with a realistic
topography (figure 3) during a complex Sahelian type rainfall event.

Figure 3. Topographical surface used in simulations.

Figure 4 is an example of a depth and velocity field resulting from the computations (t=360
s, r=106.8 mm/h, i=0 mm/h).

Figure 4. Depths and velocities field (the colorbar indicates values of h in cm).
Simulations are done using five different macropores density and a random distribution in
space: = 0, 10, 20, 40, 90 macropores/m2, which are characteristic of low to high termites
activity. Direct measurements of the infiltration capacity of individual macropores were done
in the field. We can affect to each individual macropore a potential infiltration capacity from
a probability distribution with known mean and variance, but for the simulations presented in
this paper, the macropores diameter is taken as constant (0.91 cm) and the potential
infiltration capacity also (11.2 cm3/s). These two values are the observed means for the
termite specie Macrotermes subhyalinus. The results of the simulations are presented in
figure 5.
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We can note a general tendency to have less runoff for high macropore densities, which
is what we expected. The runoff ratio lies between about 0.9 for = 10 or 20 m-2 to about 0.6
for = 90 m-2. Observed runoff ratio ranges between 0.3 and 0.7 when there is a termite
activity, the nominal runoff ratio (without termites) being of 0.8, and the model results are
thus considered to be realistic. The peak runoff rate also is attenuated due to the presence of
macropores. If we observe figure 5 carefully, we can see that the outflow rate for = 20 m-2
is higher than the outflow rate for = 10 m-2, which means that increasing the macropore
density do not always implies reducing runoff. We can explain that by realising that the
position of macropores, independently of the density, has an influence. We will illustrate
more precisely the influence of macropore position on infiltration in the next section. Figure
5 also shows an influence of rainfall intensity and time on macropore flow. For example,
macropore flow rates for = 10 m-2 and = 20 m-2 are similar when rainfall intensity is
high, but this is no longer the case for a low rainfall intensity. Location of a large proportion
of macropores, in the case where = 20 m-2, on areas that are drying when rainfall intensity
decreases may explain this difference.

Figure 5. Effect of macropore density on runoff during a complex rainfall event, on a 1m2
plot with a complex topography.
With this simple example, we show that although the main interpretation of the results
(the density effect) is clear, a fine analysis reveals that topography should be taken into
account if we want to go deeper into the interpretation. A second example will help us going
further with our thought about the influence of topography and location of macropores.
A closer view on the influence of spatial distribution of macropores
A second example consists in repeated simulations of overland flow for 2 different
macropore densities (1 = 10 m-2 and 2 = 50 m-2) either on a realistic topography or on an
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inclined plane with the same y slope. For each of the 4 combinations topography-density, 10
simulations were done using a random spatial distribution of macropores. The objective is to
point out the variability of macropore flow, associated to the type of topography and to the
variations of macropore location for a given density. The results are summarised in table 1,
additional results are given in table 2.
Table 1. Influence of topography and density on macropore flow variability: summary
statistics on macropores flow rates from exploratory simulations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Realistic topography
Inclined plane
1
2
1
2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------mean
0.73
3.28
0.46
2.21
standard deviation
0.48
0.84
0.11
0.17
coefficient of variation (%) 66
26
24
8
range
0.2-1.39 1.83-4.22
0.33-0.61 2.03-2.53
confidence interval (5%)
0.39-1.07 2.68-3.88
0.38-0.53 2.09-2.34
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------For the case with a realistic topography, the mean macropore flow rate is 4.5 times
higher for density 2 than for 1, which is related to the fact that 2 / 1 = 5. The variability
for 1 is more pronounced : the coefficient of variation reaches 66 % compared to 26 % for
2, but it may be a simpler consequence of the increase in the size of the sample (number of
macropores). Looking at table 2 a, we can see that locating only two macropores ( = 2 m-2)
in the two major depressions leads to an infiltration that is higher than the one observed for
1 in the best case. If we do not smooth the original topography, this last effect increase by a
factor superior to 2: the infiltration is now close to that observed for 2 in the best case, with
the smoothed topography, because the depressions are more pronounced on the original
topographical data.
Table 2. Macropores flow rates with deterministic positioning of macropores (a) and
different spatial organisations (b).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------a)
=2 m-2 realistic topography
1.52
=2 m-2 non-smoothed topography
3.84
-2
=2 m inclined plane
0.19
-------------------------------------------------------------------------b)
=10 m-2 inclined plane, random distribution
0.58
-2
=10 m inclined plane, aggregated distribution
0.50
=10 m-2 inclined plane, y aligned distribution
0.51
-------------------------------------------------------------------------For the case with the inclined plane, the ratio of the mean macropore flow rates is also
close to 2 / 1. When = 2 m-2 no depression effect could be expected thus we have a
decrease of macropores flow rate. The variability for 2 is also lower than for 1, but it is
overall, either for 1 or 2, very limited comparing to the situation with a realistic
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topography. The uniformity of water depths and velocities is the main cause of this
attenuation which stresses again the influence of topography.
From a detailed observation of the data, we can see that the mean macropore flow rate
for 1, with the realistic topography, is not very representative of the population. We have
rather two distinct populations, with respective means 0.30 cm3/s and 1.16 cm3/s. It means
that we are well under or well above the mean inclined plane case flow rate, like if
macropores were located mainly in low water depth zones or in high water depth zones for
example. What is interesting is that we have a very different behaviour for 2, where in 9/10
cases the macropore flow rate is superior to the mean inclined plane case flow rate. As the
location of only one macropore in a depression is susceptible to have a great influence on
infiltration, it is clear that as regards the higher density 2, the probability that at least one of
the macropores will be located in a favourable zone increase toward unity, and that the effect
of macropores tends to be always important. If we have considered a topography without the
two main depressions, but rather with two main mounds, nothing would have appear since
the location of macropores in a zone of high altitude implies Qm=0 which do not really differ
from values in zones characterised by a mean altitude.
Some simulations have also been done on an inclined plane to illustrate the potential
influence of spatial organisation of macropores (table 2 b) but counter-intuitively no clear
effect appears yet, maybe because the spatial resolution of the grid was too coarse (4 cm).

Conclusion
Although they are food for thought, the results presented in this paper may be somewhat
questioned by future simulations, for example with different types of topography. Therefore,
we should be very careful before attempting to conclude. However it appears clearly that our
new model behaves reasonably well, and that it has some advantages on other approaches
about the influence of macropores on infiltration.
i) Our model allows to take into account the way macropores are supplied with water, a
phenomena that have been often neglected.
ii) For a given macropores density, the proposed model is able to provide an estimation of
the variability of infiltration and runoff by taking into account different macropores
locations on a variable topography. By this way it becomes possible to access one of the
cause of uncertainty in runoff predictions.
iii) Our model appears to be a valuable tool to help reasoning on complex situations
characteristics of spatial transitory phenomena, like overland flow on an infiltrating
heterogeneous topographical surface, which are difficult if not impossible to handle
experimentally.
iv) Although this work seems to be rather a fundamental one, we hope that it will be useful
to help answer precise applied questions like : what we can do to maximise the effect of
termites activity on infiltration, when attempting to restore degraded soils, if we can
choose for example where to put straw to attract termites ?
v) Although we are not interested, in the present application context, in the transport of
solutes, we believe that our approach will be well adapted to model solutes transport into
surface runoff and to estimate the quantity of solutes advected by water that is expected to
enter a macroporous soil by identified preferential pathways.

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