Question
Which one of the following increases over time when the soil is fully saturated?
The correct answer is
Runoff
Understanding Soil Saturation
Soil saturation occurs when all the pore spaces within the soil are filled with water. At this point, the soil can no longer absorb additional water effectively.
Hydrologic Processes During Saturation
When soil is fully saturated, its ability to accept more water through infiltration drastically reduces or ceases. This causes any incoming water to accumulate on the surface.
- Infiltration: The rate of water entering the soil decreases significantly as pores are already full.
- Porosity: This is a measure of the void spaces in soil; it's a soil property and doesn't increase over time simply due to saturation.
- Permeability: This describes how easily water can flow through the soil. While saturation affects flow, permeability itself doesn't inherently increase over time solely because of saturation.
- Runoff: Since infiltrated water is minimal, excess water begins to flow over the land surface. As saturation persists or more water is added, the volume of this surface flow, or runoff, increases over time.
Therefore, runoff is the process that increases over time when the soil is fully saturated.
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Important Questions from Hydrogeology (Groundwater Flow and Exploration)
- The water table in an unconfined aquifer at a place near the coast is 1 m above the Mean Sea Level. Given the densities of fresh and saline water as 1.001 and 1.025 g/cc, respectively, the fresh-saline water interface at the same location should be at a depth of __________ m from the water table. [round off to one decimal place]
- With regard to occurrence of groundwater in an area, which of the given statements is CORRECT?
- The groundwater flow equation $\frac{\partial^2h}{\partial x^2} + \frac{\partial^2h}{\partial y^2} + \frac{\partial^2h}{\partial z^2} = 0$, where h refers to the hydraulic head and x, y, z are coordinates, is valid when the flow condition is
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