Soil Water Relations During Rain Infiltration: II. Moisture Content Profiles During Rains of Low Intensities

During transient‐state infiltration of steady, low intensity rain into laboratory soil columns, moisture contents at increasing soil depths tended with time to approach a constant level. This level, as well as the observed rates of wetting‐front advance, were higher in cases of more intense rain. For the conditions studied, soil moisture contents and wetting‐front advance rates associated with ponded‐water infiltration were generally considerably higher than those of rain infiltration profiles. The differences between the observed and the theoretically predicted rain infiltration profile data were insignificant for rains of low intensity but significant for those of higher intensity. The wetting front advance observations confirmed certain aspects of the theory presented in part I of this paper.