New soil model eliminates water saturation issues, improves agricultural predictions.
A new modification to the van Genuchten model improves predictions of soil water flow in different types of soil. By adjusting the model's parameters, the new approach better matches actual measurements of how water moves through soil. This modification smooths out sharp drops in water flow near saturation, making the predictions more accurate. The improved model can be easily used in computer simulations to study how water moves through the ground.