The influence of free convection on soil salinization in arid regions

Evaporation of groundwater in a region with a shallow water table and small natural replenishment causes accumulation of salts near the ground surface. Water in the upper soil layer becomes denser than in the depth. This is a potentially unstable situation which may result in convective currents. When free convection takes place, estimates of the salinity profile, salt precipitation rate, etc., obtained within the framework of a 1-D (vertical) model fail.Very simplified model of the process is proposed, in which the unsaturated zone is represented by a horizontal soil layer at a constant water saturation, and temperature changes are neglected. The purpose of the model is to obtain a rough estimate of the role of natural convection in the salinization process.A linear stability analysis of a uniform vertical flow is given, and the stability limit is determined numerically as a function of evaporation rate, salt concentration in groundwater, and porous medium dispersivity. The loss of stability corresponds to quite realistic Rayleigh numbers. The stability limit depends in nonmonotonic way on the evaporation rate.The developed convective regime was simulated numerically for a 2-D vertical domain, using finite volume element discretization and FAS multigrid solver. The dependence of the average salt concentration in the upper layer on the Rayleigh number was obtained.List of Main Symbols horizontal wavenumber - _L , _T dispersivities (longitudinal and transversal) - D ^* diffusion coefficient (in a porous medium) - g acceleration of gravity - H thickness of the vadoze zone - k permeability - p pressure - Pe Péclet number - q mass flux - Ra Rayleigh number Greek _L , _T dimensionless dispersivities - coefficient of concentration expansion - coefficient of viscosity variation - volumetric fraction of the liquid phase - viscosity - density - stream function - mass fraction of salt in water Vectors and tensors D dispersion coefficient - e unit vector - I unit tensor - J nonadvective salt flux - V liquid phase velocity - x radius-vector