A Finite Difference Scheme for the Richards Equation Under Variable-Flux Boundary

The Richards equation is a degenerate nonlinear partial differential equation which serves as a model for describing a flow of water through saturated/unsaturated porous medium under the action of gravity. This paper develops a numerical method, with a mathematical support, for the one-dimensional Richards equation. Implicit schemes based on a backward Euler format have been widely used, but have a difficulty in insuring the stability, because of the strong nonlinearity and degeneracy. A linearized semi-implicit finite difference scheme that is faster than the backward Euler implicit schemes is established, the stability of this scheme is proved by adding a small perturbation to the coefficient function, and an error estimate is made. It is found that there is a linear relationship between the discretization error in a certain norm and the perturbation strength.