*3.1. Water Content Spatial Distribution*

In Figure 5 the spatial distribution obtained for the WC is presented for the sampled transect along (Figure 5a) and perpendicular (Figure 5b) to the drip line. The WC distribution demonstrates that relatively higher WC can be found directly above and below the location of the emitters (i.e., 20 cm depth). A typical wetting bulb of relatively light-texture soil can be observed with the bulb radius; the horizontally wetted radius is less than the vertically wetted depth radius [46,47]. The near-saturation zone was located about 20 cm from the emitters from which a gradual reduction in WC can be observed up to 50 cm distance, which is located in the middle, between two nearby drippers. At this location, the WC above the emitters is the lowest one, suggesting that there is no significant overlap between nearby emitters. The relatively large distance between the emitters (i.e., 1 m) and the corresponding spatial distribution of the WC also affected the salinity and sodicity spatial distribution, as is demonstrated below. Regarding the perpendicular transect (Figure 5b), it should be noted that +100 cm on the *x*-axis is towards the tree-line and –100 cm is towards the road, i.e. away from the tree-line. Toward the tree-line, there is a gradual reduction in WC which is likely due to root water uptake. Away from the tree-line, the reduction in WC may stem from higher evaporation rates, due to less shading from the tree.

The three dimensional visualization (Figure 6) shows an entire 2 m2 view for the spatial WC distribution at six individual depths (Table 2). It is clearly illustrated that down to 30 cm (the three top layers), the dryer zone prevails toward the tree line compared to the corresponding locations, away from the tree line. The dryer WC zone may indicate water uptake by the active root zone [11,12]. The relatively low overlap between the wetting fronts of the nearby emitters is also illustrated, suggesting that in the long-term, the solute fluxes, due to convection, dispersion, and diffusion might have reached the wetting front of individual emitter and accumulated at this location. Consequently, in the long-term, higher salinity can be expected between emitters and perpendicular to the emitter.

**Figure 5.** Gravimetric water content (%) distribution (**a**) along the drip line and (**b**) perpendicular to the drip line. The black and white stars indicate the location of the drippers.

**Figure 6.** An overall gravimetric water content (%) distribution at all six depths, 0–5, 5–10, 10–15, 15–30, 30–45, and 45–60 cm. The black and white stars indicate the location of the drippers.
