Abstract:Information of soil hydraulic properties is required to predict water flow in unsaturated soils. Soil hydraul properties include, soil water characteristic curve and hydraulic conductivity. In this paper an integral method is used to solve the problem of water absorption into an one-dimensional and horizontal soil column. According to solved results, a simple infiltration is established to estimate the parameters, zα and n,in the van Genuchten model of a soil water characteristic curve. The two parameters,α and n, in the characteristic curve model are estimated by the characteristic length of wetted zone.sorptivity, and saturated hydraulic conductivity.Unsaturated soil hydraulic conductivity is then estimated from the parameters'determined in the soil water characteristic curve. This new method uses both Richards’ equation and the closed form equations of soil hydraulic properties. The simple infiltration method provides a transient water flow approach to estimate the soil water characteristic curve instead of the usual equilibrium method. This is a new and simple means to determine soil hydraulic properties.