Abstarct: One of the methods for reducing water losses is to use efficient irrigation systems such as drip irrigation. Drip irrigation system offers the highest water conservation among all other irrigation systems. Understanding the wetting pattern is very important to achieve the proper design of drip irrigation systems. Knowledge of the soil wetted volume helps in the establishment of the emitter spacing and the duration of irrigation. The wetted volume depends on factors such as soil type, initial soil moisture content, emitter discharge, the rate of water application, etc. The soil water distribution around an irrigation emitter can be determined using laboratory, field experiments, empirical models and numerical models. However, conducting laboratory and field measurements are costly and time-consuming. Therefore, the use of empirical numerical models is necessary. One of the most precise numerical models is the HYDRUS (2D/3D) software. In the present study, in addition to investigating the performance of the Hydrous-2D in estimating the wetting pattern; an empirical model was developed baxsed on data collected in the laboratory on the silt loam soil using a surface and subsurface dripper. Laboratory experiments were conducted on a 1.2*0.70*0.90 m lysimeter that had transparent walls. The soil was irrigated with four discharges of 2, 4, 6 and 8 L/H. Measuring the dimensions of the wetting pattern showed that the development of the wetting bulbs is more remarkable in the horizontal direction compared to the vertical direction. Hydrus model was calibrated using inverse solution method, and soil hydraulic parameters were estimated. The validation of the numerical model showed that the numerical model results were in good agreement with the observational results. So that the value of R2 was higher than 0.96 and the mean error (Er) ranged between 6% (wetting radius estimation) and 2% (moisture estimation). Multivariate regression (empirical model) coefficients were also estimated using laboratory results. The results showed that the developed empirical model could precisely estimate the wetting bulb dimensions for both surface and sub-surface drip irrigation.