INTRODUCTION

HYDROLOGY
DEFINITIONS AND SYMBOLS
Hydrology is generally defined as a science dealing with the interrelationship between water on
and under the earth and in the atmosphere. For the purpose of this manual, hydrology will deal
with estimating flood magnitudes as the result of precipitation. In the design of highway drainage
structures, floods are usually considered in terms of peak runoff or discharge in cubic meters per
second (m3/s) and hydrographs as discharge per time. For structures that are designed to control
volume of runoff, like detention storage facilities, or where flood routing through culverts is
used, then the entire discharge hydrograph will be of interest.
The following are concepts that are important in a hydrologic analysis. These concepts will be
used throughout the remainder of this chapter in dealing with different aspects of hydrologic
studies:
The hydrologic cycle is the circulation of water through the hydrosphere which
extends to about 14 km to the atmosphere and about 1 km into the earth crust.
The hydrological cycle has various components and there is a continuous
interchange of water among these different components of the cycle. Water is
driven in the cycle by solar energy directly and indirectly, by Coriolis forces and
gravitational and capillary forces. However, the total mass of water in the
hydrological cycle remains constant.

The hydrological cycle

From all the water in the hydrological cycle about 96.5 percent is in the oceans,
1.7 percent is in the polar ice, 1.7 percent is in the form of groundwater and
only the remainder which is 0.1 percent is in the surface and atmospheric water
systems. Although the percentage of water in the surface and atmosphere is
relatively small, there is a large quantity of water in them. Also, the hydrologic
processes involved in the surface and atmospheric water systems are enormous
and vibrant, and have a vast effect on the earth environment.

Water evaporates from the land surface, ocean, inland water bodies; vegetation
enters as vapour into the atmosphere. Water vapour is transported to higher
altitudes in the atmosphere until it condenses and forms clouds and eventually
falls on the earth by precipitation. Precipitation can be in the form of rainfall,
snowfall or in other forms. Precipitated water may be intercepted by vegetation,
may reach the land and flows as overland flow. Overland flow discharges into
the streams and then to lakes or to the ocean. Some water may infiltrate into
the ground, flows as subsurface flow, percolates to recharge deep groundwater.
This groundwater may emerge as springs or seep into the water bodies.

1.1 Components of the hydrological cycle (hydrological processes)

Precipitation
The main forms of precipitation include rain, snow, hail and sleet and it occurs
when the water vapour in the atmosphere condenses and falls to the earth. The
process requires saturation of the air mass by the processes of decreasing its
temperature or by increasing the concentration of water vapour or by both
together.
Precipitation and evaporation are the hydro-meteorological processes in the
atmosphere that interact with surface water. Precipitation is responsible for
depositing the fresh water on the earth. Approximately 505,000 km 3of water
falls as precipitation each year, 398,000 km of it over the oceans. Given the
3

earth's surface area, that means the globally-averaged annual precipitation

is990 millimetres. Much of the water precipitated on the land surface is derived
from moisture evaporated from the oceans and transported by atmospheric
circulation.

The main mechanisms of adding more water vapour into air masses are by
daytime evaporation water from the water bodies, evapotranspiration from
plants and by wind convergence into areas of upward motion. The cooling of air
masses and condensation of water vapour happens when they are lifted to
higher altitudes in the atmosphere. The three main mechanisms of air mass
lifting are frontal lifting, where warmer air is lifted over cooler air by frontal
passage; orographic lifting, where air masses rises to pass over a mountain, and
convective lifting where air moves upward due to instabilities in the air columns.
Also, upward motion of the outgoing air masses at a cylcone which happens due
to convergence of air masses on low pressure zone at lower elevation, leads to
cooling and condensation of water vapour.

Interception
During precipitation, the leaves and stems of vegetation, buildings, etc. capture
some of the precipitation before it reaches the ground surface. This is termed as
interception and the intercepted water is dissipated by evaporation during the
dry weather after rainfall. Interception depends on the land cover (vegetation
types, density) cover and can be significant fraction of the annual precipitation
ranging up to about 30 percent.

Evaporation and Evapotranspiration

Evaporation which is the vaporization of water from a water surface depends on
the supply of heat energy to provide latent heat to produce vapour and
transport of the vapour away by the wind. The measured pan evaporation data
provide the best indication of nearby open water evaporation. A measured value
of pan evaporation is multiplied by a pan factor in the range of 0 to 1 (usually
taken as 0.7) to convert it to open water evaporation value. Evapotranspiration
(ET) is the evaporation from land surface and transpiration from vegetation.
It depends on the availability of moisture in the evaporative surface other than
the above two factors governing the evaporation. The evaporation component of
ET includes direct evaporative loss from the soil surface, depression storages
and intercepted water. Transpired water is that which is used by vegetation and
subsequently lost to the atmosphere as vapor. The water generally enters the
plant through the root zone, is used for various bio physiological functions
including photosynthesis, and then passes back to the atmosphere through the
leaf stomates. Transpiration will stop if the vegetation becomes stressed to the
wilting point, which is the point in which there is insufficient water left in the soil
for a plant to transpire, or if the plant to atmosphere vapour concentration
gradient becomes prohibitive to plant physiological processes.

The calculations of rate of evapotranspiration can be made using the pan

evaporation with adjustments to account for the condition of the vegetation and
soil. For a given climatic condition, basic rate is the reference crop evaporation
defined as the rate evapotranspiration from an extensive surface of 8 cm to 15
cm all green grass cover of uniform height, actively growing, completely shading
the ground and not short of water. The potential evapotranspiration of another
crop growing under the same conditions as the reference crop is calculated by
multiplying the reference crop evapotranspiration by a crop coefficient. Crop
coefficient changes with the stage of growth of the crop. Actual
evapotranspiration (AET) is the quantity of water that is actually removed from a
surface due to the processes of evaporation and transpiration. AET is found by
multiplying the potential evapotranspiration by a soil coefficient.
Infiltration
The process of penetrating of water from the ground surface under gravity is
called infiltration. Many factors influence the infiltration rate. It mainly depends
on condition of soil surface, existing land cover, properties of soil beneath.
Properties of soil include porosity, hydraulic conductivity and existing moisture
content of the soil. These properties significantly vary with time and space, and
therefore the infiltration process is a complex process to describe
mathematically.

In unsaturated soil, that is when the void spaces in soil are only partially filled
with water, the water is attracted and kept bonded to the particle surfaces
through surface tension and a soil suction force is present. The energy
possessed by unit weight of water due to suction force is referred to as suction
head. The suction head varies with the moisture content and it diminishes as the
soil gets saturated. The hydraulic conductivity, on the other hand, increases
with the increase of moisture content.

Subsurface flow
Subsurface flow which occurs as lateral flow beneath the land surface is a major
component in the hydrological cycle. The water stored in the form of soil
moisture in unsaturated or saturated soil laterally flows under energy gradient.
The subsurface flow finally leads to a stream at depression and subsurface flow
contributes for the base flow present in streams during dry weather periods.
During dry weather period with no infiltration from other than the surface water
storages, the source for subsurface flow is the stored water in the catchment in
the form of soil moisture. The subsurface flow released into streams and
evapotranspiration gradually reduces the subsurface storage. In turn, the
depleting soil moisture storage reduces the subsurface flow into the streams.
Subsurface flow velocities and discharge can be estimated by the application of
Darcy’s law.
 Subsurface hydrological processes

Surface water flow

Inland surface water is a major part in the hydrological cycle. Surface water
flows are caused during precipitation as excess over infiltration, and due to
releases of water after consumptive uses from houses, industries and irrigation,
discharge from springs, and secretion (or exfiltration) from saturated and
unsaturated soil as base flow. Surface water flow appears as overland flows
during precipitation and for short period after precipitation, etc. and as channel
flows in drains, streams and rivers. As the rainfall continues, the rainfall
intensity exceeds the infiltration capacity of the soil and excess water begins to
pond on the land surface. The ponded water fills depressions and potholes in the
ground surface and, also remain attach to the surface by surface tension.
Depression storages are depleted by infiltration and evaporation. It is only after
filling these depression storages that water starts to flow downstream as
overland flow. First, overland flow concentrates into rill flow, and then rill flow
concentrates into gully flow and stream flow. The overland flow continues to
flow downstream in the catchment slope until it is discharged to a drain or a
stream. However, overland flow may be intercepted within the catchment by
natural depressions in ground or manmade storage facilities and detained or
retained. When a rainfall of intensity (i) occurs on a plain sloping ground of a
unit area with an infiltration rate (f), generates a runoff of equivalent to the
excess precipitation over infiltration (i-f). The same may be extended to
estimate the overland flow generated from a catchment slope by multiplying the
excess precipitation over infiltration over by the catchment area. When the soil
profile is saturated, there is no infiltration and saturation overland flow occurs.
 Typical stream flow hydrograph

SCOPE OF HYDROLOGY
The study of hydrology helps us to know (i) the maximum probable flood that may occur at a
given site and its frequency; this is required for the safe design of drains and culverts, dams and
reservoirs, channels and other flood control structures. (ii) the water yield from a basin—its
occurence, quantity and frequency, etc; this is necessary for the design of dams, municipal water
supply, water power, river navigation, etc. (iii) the ground water development for which a
knowledge of the hydrogeology of the area, i.e., of the formation soil, recharge facilities like
streams and reservoirs, rainfall pattern, climate, cropping pattern, etc. are required. (iv) the
maximum intensity of storm and its frequency for the design of a drainage project in the area.
HYDROLOGICAL DATA
For the analysis and design of any hydrologic project adequate data and length of records are
necessary. A hydrologist is often posed with lack of adequate data. The basic hydrological data
required are: (i) Climatological data (ii) Hydrometeorological data like temperature, wind
velocity, humidity, etc. (iii) Precipitation records (iv) Stream-flow records (v) Seasonal
fluctuation of ground water table or piezometric heads (vi) Evaporation data (vii) Cropping
pattern, crops and their consumptive use (viii) Water quality data of surface streams and ground
water (ix) Geomorphologic studies of the basin, like area, shape and slope of the basin, mean and
median elevation, mean temperature (as well as highest and lowest temperature recorded) and
other physiographic characteristics of the basin; stream density and drainage density; tanks and
reservoirs (x) Hydrometeorological characteristics of basin: (i) a.a.r., long term precipitation,
space average over the basin using isohyets and several other methods (Rainbird, 1968) (ii)
Depth-area-duration (DAD) curves for critical storms (station equipped with self-recording
raingauges).
(iii) Isohyetal maps—Isohyets may be drawn for long-term average, annual and monthly
precipitation for individual years and months (iv) Cropping pattern—crops and their seasons (v)
Daily, monthly and annual evaporation from water surfaces in the basin (vi) Water balance
studies of the basin (vii) Chronic problems in the basin due to a flood-menacing river (like Tapti
or Tapi in central India) or siltmenacing river (like Tungabhadra in Karnataka) (vii) Soil
conservation and methods of flood control

HYDROLOGIC EQUATION
The hydrologic equation is simply the statement of the law of conservation of matter and is given
by
I = O + ∆S ... (1.1)
Where I = inflow O = outflow ∆S = change in storage
This equation states that during a given period, the total inflow into a given area must equal the
total outflow from the area plus the change is storage. While solving this equation, the ground
water is considered as an integral part of the surface water and it is the subsurface inflow and
outflow that pose problems in the water balance studies of a basin.