Factors Influencing Infiltration Rate Essay

Factors Influencing Infiltration Rate

Natural elements such as the characteristics of the soil, plants and animals, and angle of the slope control the percentage of precipitation that changes into runoff in a specific landscape, and the duration it takes for runoff to access a stream. Changes that human have made to these landscape features greatly affects runoff.

Grassed filter strips used in farm fields help in minimizing runoff and erosion by decelerating water velocities in the vegetated areas. Another way it reduces erosion is by confining excess sediment, nutrients, and farm chemicals. Vegetation located in prairies, forests, and other natural areas also plays a similar role.

The surface of the soil works as a filter that allow water pass through at a certain rate which known as the infiltration rate or infiltration capacity. A runoff may be created when precipitation deposits water to the soil surface quicker than it can be absorbed. The excess water stays on the surface and flows downslope as runoff. If the rate of precipitation is 5 centimeters per hour, but the rate of infiltration is only 2.5 centimeters per hour, surface runoff is produced at the rate of 2.5 centimeters per hour, even if the soil is not entirely soaked. This

Saturated areas expand during precipitation, as well as during the cold season when plants eliminate inadequate water from the soil. Any rain that descends on these saturated areas must run off over the surface. During extended heavy rainfall, large areas of a gently sloping landscape may become sopped, and much of the rain that trails run off rapidly to streams. This case was observable during the destructive Mississippi River flood of 1993 when portions of the landscape in the Upper Mississippi River Basin seemed to be lake on satellite pictures that discover surface