Drainage and Recharge Estimates for Central Canterbury

 The movement of water through soils is the dominant means by which chemicals move from the soil surface to groundwater. Water entering the soil surface can be temporarily stored and then lost by evaporation, plant uptake, or drainage. Water used by plants and lost to evaporation does not contribute to recharging the groundwater. Only water moving beyond the root zone of the crop will move the chemical beyond that depth. In order to understand the extent to which a particular management system can potentially impact groundwater, we need to determine the impact of that practice upon water movement beyond the root zone. The applet below uses a simple water balance model to estimate drainage amounts for user-selected practices and parameters.

Created: March 6, 1998 by D. L. Nofziger while at Lincoln Environmental, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand during a sabbatical leave from the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater OK 74078. Send email to david.nofziger@okstate.edu

Last Modified:January 16, 2008.