Use Visual Iteration to Determine Infiltration

A recent article in Natural Sciences Education reports on a new, but intuitive and visual approach by which the actual infiltration rate into a soil from a rainfall event can be determined. To use this approach, only a simple spreadsheet needs to be developed, from which the time of ponding and the infiltration rate at any time can be determined using the visual trial-and-error method by typing a value of actual infiltration rate and visually judging whether the value is too small or too large until the correct infiltration rate is achieved. After that, the runoff rate, the total depths of cumulative infiltration, and cumulative runoff at any time can also be calculated.