Some Aspects of Rainfall Infiltration Processes in Arid and Semi-arid Region

The Horton and Philip infiltration capacity curve are discussed and applied on the different infiltration measurement in Wangjiagou watershed. It is found that the Horton infiltration capacity curve is more applicable than the Philip infiltration capacity curve for the uniform soil. But they aren't directly used for runoff generation calculation since they are derived under the saturated land surface conditions and the nonuniform distribution of infiltration on watershed. The processes of rainfall-infiltration are reviewed, the research on the relation of the rainfall infiltration and the soil water is the basic factor for knowing the runoff generation mechanism and building the distributed hydrological model.