Solution of water infiltration phenomenon in unsaturated soils with fractional approach.

In the present analysis, the natural transform decomposition and variational iteration transform methods have been employed to find an approximate analytical solution of the fractional order of Richards' equation. Some standard cases of Richards' equation have been discussed as an example to illustrate the high accuracy and reliability of proposed methods. The result obtained from the proposed method is very close to the exact solution of the problem. It is concluded that natural transform decomposition and variational iteration transform methods are better alternatives to some standard existing methods to solve some realistic problems arising in science and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]