Infiltration of water from arrayed, interacting surface water sources (emitters) and extraction of water by plant roots is of interest in the context of trickle irrigation. In this study, steady flows from subsurface or surface point and line sources in laterally confined .soil domains were analyzed on the basis of the linearized Richards equation written in terms of the matric flux potential (MFP). Analytical solutions (Green's functions) were derived tor the problems of three-dimensional infiltration from point sources into confined strip-shaped, rectangular, and cylindrical domains and for two-dimensional infiltration from a line source into a strip-shaped domain. Incorporating these solutions into a coupled source-sink water flow and uptake model enabled analysis of the effects of lateral confinement and various source-sink (emitter-plant) configurations on relative water uptake rates (RWURs). The exact solutions for infiltration into confined strip-shaped and rectangular domains derived in this study confirmed the accuracy of previously presented RWUR results, by superposition of the solutions for equivalent, arrayed point sources (along a single drip line and in an array of parallel drip lines). An equivalent confining cylinder of the same cross-sectional area as a square was found to yield RWURs in excellent agreement with those tor a square confinement. A bidirectional tcctangulat confinement increased the RWURs more than a unidirectional strip-shaped confinement. Among the various simulated emitter-plant configurations, the lowest RWURs were obtained for a configuration of a single plant row irrigated by two lateral drip lines.Abbreviations: MFP, macric flux potential: RWUR, relative water uptake rate. I nfiltration of water from arrayed, interacting (surface or subsurface) water sources (emitters or drip lines) and extraction of water by plant roots is of interest in the context of trickle irrigation because plant water uptake is, naturally, one of the major components of the irrigation water balance (Dasberg and Or, 1999). These processes are critical for normal plant growth and crop yields, and they also greatly affect the flow of water and solutes in soil-plant systems and thus determine the quantity and quality of percolating excess water. Water uptake by plant roots can be considered at two distinguishable-microscopic and macroscopic-scales (Feddes and Raats, 2004;Raats, 2007). Microscopic models simulate water flow into individual plant roots on the a.ssumption that the root acts as a cylindrical sink of finite radius and infinite (Gardner, 1960;Hillel et al., 1975;Molz, 1975;Passioura, 1988) or finite (Aura, 1996;Personne et al., 2003) length. The flow equation (usually diffusion type) is solved for the appropriate boundary conditions (i.e., a given water potential or given water flux) at the soil-root interface and a prescribed water potential at some distance from the root. Although the microscopic approach provides insights into water uptake by plant roots, its application is quite restricted ...