Question

1)Breifly discuss the mechanism of inflitration and factors wich affect the infiltration capicity over an area ?

Answer 1

The water penetrate into the soil due to the gravity forve acting on it and this process is called infiltration.

Factors affecting infiltration.

1.Duration and intensity of rainfall-The rainfall with low intensity and longer duration leads to water getting enough time to infiltrate into the soil while heavy rainfall will lead to more runoff and less infiltration.

2.Vegetative cover presence-If there is vegetative cover and ditches/lakes/ponds etc present then more water will be captured and will get enought time to penetrate and less runoff will go into rivers/seas/oceans etc.

3.type of soil and climatic factors-The wind speed,temperature, humidity, type of soil etc will affect the infiltration.Boulders and small stones will alllow more infiltration due high void and more permeability but clayey soil have less infiltration due to less permeability.Shape and size of soil particles will also afffect infiltration with spherical particles causing less resistance due to less surface area and hence more infiltration.

4.Degree of saturation of soil- Saturated soil will have more infiltration while less satured soil will absorb water till it becomes 100 percent saturated.