A fully-explicit discontinuous Galerkin hydrodynamic model for variably-saturated porous media

Groundwater flows play a key role in the recharge of aquifers, the transport of solutes through subsurface systems or the control of surface runoff. Predicting these processes requires the use of groundwater models with their applicability directly linked to their accuracy and computational efficiency. In this paper, we present a new method to model water dynamics in variably-saturated porous media. Our model is based on a fully-explicit discontinuous-Galerkin formulation of the 3D Richards equation, which shows a perfect scaling on parallel architectures. We make use of an adapted jump penalty term for the discontinuous-Galerkin scheme and of a slope limiter algorithm to produce oscillation-free exactly conservative solutions. We show that such an approach is particularly well suited to infiltration fronts. The model results are in good agreement with the reference model Hydrus-1D and seem promising for large scale applications involving a coarse representation of saturated soil.