Abstract
Infiltration into hydrophobic soils has been widely observed, quantified
and documented in many situations and several climates (DeBano, 2000;
Angulo-Jaramillo et al., 2016).The modelling of water infiltration into
soils with hydrophobic properties is often performed by modifying the
unsaturated hydraulic parameters of soils, but only rarely taking into
account explicitly the water-repellency. In this study, we model water
infiltration in hydrophobic soils considering explicitly the contact
angle as the measurement of water repellency, with the geometrical pore
model proposed by Hammecker et al. (2004).This microscopical approach
showed good agreement with macroscopical models and with experimental
data. The model was used to evaluate the conditions for unstable flow
with fingering features.