Introduction to Hydrology,

Part 2
Notes, Handouts
 Precipitation
• Much of hydrology deals with precipitation
– How much?
– How frequently/infrequently?
– What form?
– How quickly?
– Seasonal variation?
– Drought frequency?
– How much will run off/ be infiltrated?
• Much of hydrology for hydraulics looks like:
– What design flows will a certain rainfall cause for my
project?
 Precipitation Cont.
• All design precipitation estimates need large
amounts of data to determine quantities/rates
Notre Dame

Average Annual Rainfall (NOAA)

 Design Storm
• An engineering structure must be designed for some specified
loading
• Tied to performance criteria
– Collapse
Most severe states
– Life safety
– Post-storm functionality with minor repairs
– Continuously operational
• Design storm tied to return period of design event
– Greater return period for more severe consequences
– Example: Reservoir must be able to pass 100 year flood. Or Probable
Maximum Precipitation if lives would be in danger.
– Example: Local stormwater sewer must have capacity for 10 year
storm
– Often designated by law
• Rainfall Duration for given return period – generally depends on
size of catchment
 Design Rainfall
• Design rainfall for a given return period has three
components:
1. Magnitude (Total amount in inches)
2. Storm length (hours)
3. Rainfall distribution within storm
• Magnitude determined from SCS or other tabulated values
(NOAA Precipitation Frequency Data Server)
http://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/hdsc/pfds/index.html
• Distribution in time comes from curves normalized to total
rainfall amount
– Varies with location: Different places have different types of
storms
– May have different types of curves at same location depending
on when peak rainfall occurs (first quartile of storm, second
quartile, etc)
Too advanced for
this class
 Temporal Variation of Rainfall

Four SCS Rainfall Distribution Types Temporal Variation of Rainfall

for 24 hr storm: Numerical
values for these curves given in
text
SCS 24 Hour Rainfall Distributions
•Gives fraction of
total rainfall in each
½ hour interval
•Four time histories
for different regions
(I,IA,II,III)
•Other distributions
available for
different storm
lengths
 Other Rainfall Variations
• Many more rainfall curves for advanced design
– Other time periods (6h, 24h)
– Quartile of storm that sees maximum intensity
(when rainfall is strongest in storm)
– Huff probability level (percent exceeded in x% of
storms)
– Not used much in this class, important for other
situations
– In Indiana Stormwater Drainage Manual
 Design Rainfall Depth and Storm
Length
• Taken from Statistical analyses
– SCS or other tabulated values (NOAA Precipitation
Frequency Data Server)
http://hdsc.nws.noaa.gov/hdsc/pfds/index.html
– 10 year storm, 100 year storm, etc.
• Storm length determined by code or by engineering
analysis (largely time of concentration)
10 year, 24 hour Rainfall (SCS)
Moreau Seminary Depth-
Duration-Frequency Curves

•NOAA compilations of
Return Period vs Storm
Length vs Total
Precipitation
•Available at many
locations
•For selected return
periods (6, 12, 24, 96 hour)
NOAA also provides rainfall
variation in time
 Hydrographs
• Plot of discharge (stream, channel, etc.) vs time is
called a hydrograph
• Hydrographs are separated into direct surface
runoff and base flow (groundwater contribution
to steady flow more or less)
1. Straight line between start of rising limb and point
of max curvature on receding limb, OR
2. Horizontal line between start of rising limb and next
intersection point, OR
3. Empirical extrapolation techniques dependent on
watershed area
 Hydrograph Example

Start of Point of
rising limb maximum
curvature
Alternate Methods for Separating Base
Flow/Runoff
•Separate using horizontal
line AD to next intersection
point, OR

•Continue slope of
downward trend to peak of
discharge AB; then straight
line BC to intersection point
Horizontal
at N past peak
line •N=A0.2
•N in days
•A in km2
 The Unit Hydrograph
• Relates a unit runoff amount (over some relatively short time)
to the time history of surface runoff
– i.e. Discharge history for 1 inch of runoff averaged over basin
generated by 12 hour rainfall event
– Runoff will always be less than rainfall amount
• Approximate, but very important concept
• Once the unit hydrograph is obtained, assume linearity in both
space and time to obtain hydrograph for any storm
– Runoff from 2 inch storm = 2× Runoff from 1 inch storm
– Runoff from 24 hour storm = Runoff from 2 shifted 12 hour storms
– Often use these as inputs for hydraulics
• Often based on data from rain gauges/stream discharge
Making a Composite Hydrograph for
Arbitrary Runoff
 Synthetic Unit Hydrograph
• Knowing time of concentration and watershed
parameters, can develop synthetic
hydrographs
• Combine with runoff history to create
discharge history
• Most important parameters are time to peak
Tp, effective rainfall duration, ∆D, watershed
area, and region characteristics
 Time to Peak and Effective Rainfall
• For each watershed, there Runoff increments must be produced
are characteristic times for in time units of ∆D
the unit hydrograph
• Based on the time of
concentration, Tc
– Tp, time to peak of unit
hydrograph
– ∆D, duration of effective
rainfall for that watershed
– Use ∆D =0.133 Tc
Tp=0.67Tc
 Synthetic Unit Hydrograph – Peak
Discharge
• Given Watershed Area A, Time to Peak, Tp,
empirical constant Kp (usually 484, can change)
• Peak discharge qp is
q p = ( K p A ) / Tp
q p in cfs
A in square miles
Tp is time to peak (hrs)
K p Empirical Constant (usually 484)
Synthetic Unit Hydrograph (Finally)
• Given Tp, qp, synthetic unit hydrographs give
variation of flow q/qp, and fraction of overall
runoff Qa/Q as functions of T/Tp
• This will be for a unit runoff generated over time
∆D
– Will either need to change runoff so it is in intervals of
∆D or use superposition of unit hydrographs to make
a longer time unit hydrograph
• This will also vary with empirical coefficient Kp,
but Kp=484 is mostly used
Synthetic Unit Hydrograph for Kp=484
 Thought Experiments
1. How will the time of concentration, Tc, vary if
an area goes from undeveloped woods or
fields to a developed subdivision?
2. How will the volume of runoff be affected?
3. How will this affect peak flows?
4. What are the implications for downstream
areas?
 Overall Procedure for SCS Synthetic
Unit Hydrographs
• For 10-year, 24 hour design storm
1. Find 10-year, 24 hour rainfall amount
2. Find the Storm type (I, IA, II, III), and then time
variation of rainfall during event
3. Determine time variation of runoff produced
4. Make SCS synthetic unit hydrograph (long)
– May need to change time interval to match rainfall
intervals
5. Use unit hydrograph linearity and superposition
to generate 10-year design hydrograph
6. Use hydrograph to design engineering structure