1. General Model Information

Name: Drainmod

Acronym: DRAINMOD

Main medium: terrestrial
Main subject: hydrology, biogeochemistry
Organization level: ecosystem
Type of model: not specified
Main application:
Keywords: drainage, water table management systems, lateral and deep seepage, pipe drainage, irrigation, salt and nitrate movement, plant stress, continuous-time, Green-Ampt-equation

Contact:

Dr. R. Wayne Skaggs
Professor Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department
Box 7625 Raleigh
North Carolina 27695
phone: +1 919 515-6739
fax: +1 919 515-7760
email: skaggs@eos.ncsu.edu

Author(s):

Abstract:

Initially, DRAINMOD was used as a research tool to investigate the performance of broad range of drainage and subirrigation systems and their effects on water use, crop response, treatment of wastewater, and pollutant movement from agricultural fields. The specific objectives of DRAINMOD are: 1. to simulate the performance of water table management systems. 2. to simulate lateral and deep seepage from the field.

Following are the model components:

1. Precipitation (hourly data is suited).
2. Infiltration: the Green-Ampt equation is used to compute infiltration.
3. Surface drainage: The average depth of depression storage which must be satisfied before runoff.
4. Subsurface drainage: The rate of subsurface water movement into drain tubes or ditches
5. Subirrigation
6. Evapotranspiration
7. Soil water distribution
8. Rooting depth

The model simulates the hydrology of poorly drained, high water table soils on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis for long periods of climatological record (e.g. 40 years). The model predicts the effects of drainage and associated water management practices on water table depths, the soil water regime and crop yields. It has been used to analyze the hydrology of certain types of wetlands and to determine whether the wetland hydrologic criterion is satisfied for drained or partially drained sites. The model is also used to determine the hydraulic capacity of systems for land treatment of wastewater. The model has been successfully tested and applied in wide variety of geographical and soils conditions. In last 12-15 years, the model's capability has been extended to predict the effects of drainage and water management practices on the hydrology and water quality of agricultural and forested lands both on field and watershed scale. These extended versions are FIELD&STRM (Konyha, 1989): Watershed Scale version of DRAINMOD for agricultural lands; DRAINLOB (McCarthy, 1990): Fieldscale version of DRAINMOD for forested lands; DRAINWAT (Amatya, 1993): Watershed scale version of DRAINMOD for both agricultural and forested lands; DRAINMOD-S (Kandil, 1992): SALT version of DRAINMOD for field scale lands; DRAINMOD-N (Breve, 1994): Nitrogen version of DRAINMOD for field scale lands.

Author of the abstract:

Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering

II. Technical Information

II.1 Executables:

Operating System(s): available in the "pc"-version, please contact Dr. R. Wayne Skaggs DOS for running DRAINMOD under unix look at: Running DRAINMOD on the NCSU Eos System

II.2 Source-code:

Programming Language(s): BASIC and FORTRAN

II.3 Manuals:

see References

II.4 Data:

III. Mathematical Information

III.1 Mathematics

III.2 Quantities

III.2.1 Input

III.2.2 Output

IV. References

Freeze, R.A. 1971. Three-dimensional, transient, saturated- unsaturated flow in a ground water basin. Water Resour. Res., 7:347-366

Skaggs, R. W. 1990. DRAINMOD User` s Manual. North Carolina State University, Raleigh

Skaggs, R.W. 1980. DRAINMOD Reference Report - Methods for design and evaluation of drainage-water management systems for soils with high water tables. USDA SCS, South National Technical Center Texas.

Parsons, J. E., R. W. Skaggs and J. W. Gilliam. 1989: Pesticide fate with DRAINMOD/ CREAMS. Proc. of the CREAMS/GLEAMS Symposium. Sept. 27-29, 1989, Athens, GA.

Saleh, A. R. B., R. L. Bengtson, J. L. Fouss and R. W. Skaggs. 1992: Validating the DRAIN- MOD-CREAMS model in a warm, humid climate. In: D. L. Thomas, A. Shirmohammadi and B. A. Engel (ed.) Application and Enhancement of Hydrologic/Water Quality Models. Southern Cooperative Series Bulletin No. 372. pp. 59-74.

For a complete reference list look at: Papers on development and testing of drainmod

V. Further information in the World-Wide-Web

North Carolina State University: DRAINMOD or DRAINMOD

VI. Additional remarks

Last review of this document by: T. Gabele: 07.07. 1997 -
Status of the document:
last modified by Tobias Gabele Wed Aug 21 21:44:41 CEST 2002