Saturation excess runoff is a relevant process which needs additional experimental
and modeling efforts. This work is focused on its numerical modeling. The final objective
is the successive interpretation of ongoing experimental monitoring results in
two watersheds in different areas of Italy where the saturation excess runoff formation
mechanism seems to be important. The numerical solution of the two-dimensional
Richards\u2019 equation allows the evaluation of the sensitivity to the various influent parameters
: rainfall intensity, soil properties, depth and initial water content, slope and
hillslope length.
Also the subsurface flow is simulated at the same time, allowing the evaluation of the
different characteristic times and dominances of the two processes, namely subsurface
and surface runoff. Only steady runoff intensities are considered for the sake of simplifying
the results interpretation, but unsteady ones can be easily implemented. The
same holds for soil layering
