International audienceThis paper presents a model to simulate overland flow genesis induced by shallow water table movements in hillslopes. Variably saturated subsurface flows are governed by the Richards equation discretized by continuous finite elements on unstructured meshes. An obstacle-type formulation is used to determine where saturation conditions, and thus seepage face conditions, are met at the ground surface. The impact of hillslope geometry, boundary conditions, and soil hydraulic parameters on model predictions is investigated on two-dimensional test cases at the metric and hectometric scales. The obstacle-type formulation is also compared with a more detailed model coupling subsurface and overland flow, the latter being described by the shallow water equations in the diffusive wave regime
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.