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Warrick & Knight 2004
Warrick, A.W. and Knight, J.H. (2004). Unsaturated flow through a spherical inclusion. Water Resources Research 40: doi: 10.1029/2003WR002890. issn: 0043-1397.

Unsaturated flow is considered through a spherical inclusion. The hydraulic conductivity is of the form Kiexp(αh), where the saturated conductivity Ki is different in the main flow regime, the inclusion α is a constant in the entire flow domain, and h is the pressure head. The solution technique is analogous to that used by the authors previously to analyze flow through circular inclusions for two-dimensional flow by reducing Richards' equation to the Helmholtz equation and applying the analytic element method. Comparisons show differences between the two-dimensional case (circles) and three-dimensional case (spheres) in terms of flow enhancement and exclusion through the inclusions. When the inclusion permeability is less than the background conductivity, a lesser fraction of flow occurs through the three-dimensional case than for the two-dimensional case; conversely, when the permeability is higher within the inclusion, there is a higher enhancement of flow through that region in the case of the three-dimensional inclusion.

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Abstract

Keywords
Hydrology, Soil moisture, Hydrology, Unsaturated zone, Hydrology, Groundwater hydrology
Journal
Water Resources Research
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American Geophysical Union
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