In this paper, we present the results of numerical model and simulation of water transfers in soils with low water content. The main objective is to identify the major phenomena which allow to adequately describe water transfer in soil between the filtration of liquid phase and the capillary rise. We have shown that in the superficial layer of soil, the ambient atmosphere has less influence on the transfer phenomena at low water content. The bibliographic works realized on water transfer mechanisms do not allow to draw conclusions at very low water contents that is why the present manuscript brings answers to concerns not yet elucidated. The methodological approach is based on the off-center upstream method for the flux convection and the implicit scheme in time for the discretization using the Finite Volumes method. The numerical resolution of the problem is based on the Newton–Raphson method. Water profiles for different sizes of sample (30 cm, 40 cm, 50 cm and 60 cm) and for initial water contents, w0, varying from 2 to 7% were obtained at regular time interval of 85,000 s. All the simulation results highlight two distinct domains for water contents w

Hygroscopic · Numerical modeling · Pendular · Soil water content · Water transfer