Introduction to Surface

Water Hydrology
Philip B. Bedient
Rice University
2006
 The Hydrologic Cycle

39
1 0 0 Moisture over land
P r e c i pd i t a t i o n o n l a n

61 385
Evaporation from land Precipitation
on ocean
Snow
melt

Surface Precipitation
runoff
424
Evaporation
from ocean

Infiltration
Groundwater Wat
er t ab l
Recharge e

38 Surface discharge
Groundwater flow

Impervious 1 Groundwater
strata discharge
 Major Hydrologic Processes
 Precipitation (measured by radar or rain gage)
 Evaporation or ET (loss to atmosphere)
 Infiltration (loss to subsurface soils)
 Overland flow (sheet flow toward nearest stream)
 Streamflow (measured flow at stream gage)
 Ground water flow and well mechanics
 Water quality and contaminant transport (S & GW)
 Recent History of Hydrology
 Early 1900s saw great expansion of water supply and
flood control dams in the western U.S. - in response to
Dust Bowl and the Economic Depression of the 1930s
 U.S. Dept of Agriculture began many hydrologic studies
 Sherman UH and Horton infiltration theory 1930s
 Theis well mechanics (1935)
 Horton theory of infiltration (1940s)
 Penman (1948) - complete theory of evaporation
 Recent History of Hydrology
 Great urban expansion in 1950s and 60s - led to demand
for better water supply and prediction (after WW II)
 EPA formed in 1970 with a mission to clean up the rivers
and lakes of America - beginning of environmental eng.
as we know it today
 USGS and EPA actively involved in large-scale sampling
programs at the national level - The Woodlands, TX
 EPA funded development of computer models to address
water quality issues in streams and lakes, and estuarine
bays (1970s).
Guadalupe River Map
 The Woodlands

The Woodlands planners wanted to design the ultimate

community to handle a 100-year storm.
In doing this, they attempted to minimize any changes
to the existing, undeveloped floodplain.
 The Watershed or Basin
 Area of land that drains to a single
outlet and is separated from other
watersheds by a drainage divide.
 Rainfall that falls in a watershed will
generate runoff to that watershed outlet.
 Topographic elevation is used to define
a watershed boundary (land survey or
LIDAR)
 Brays Bayou Watershed
Harris Gully Area: 4.5 sq. mi.
Brays Bayou Area: 129 sq. mi.
Rice/TMC Area

Watershed Boundary
 Watershed Characteristics
Divide

 Size
 Slope Reservoir

 Shape Natural
stream

 Soil type - LU
Urban

 Storage capacity Concrete

channel
Urban runoff near Brays
Bayou - moderate flow
 Major Causes of Flooding
(Excess Water that Inundates)
 Highly Developed (urbanized) Area

 Intensity and Duration of Rainfall

 Flat Topography with Little Storage

 Poor Building Practices in floodprone areas

 No replacement of lost storage as area grows

 Harris Gully Drains to
Brays Bayou
Low Flow Box Culvert During Tropical Storm Frances
 The Watershed Response
 As rain falls over a watershed area, a certain portion will
infiltrate the soil. Some water will evaporate back.
 Net Rainfall is available as overland flow and runs off to the
nearest stream.
 Smaller tributaries or streams then begin to flow and
contribute their load to the main channel at confluences.
 As accumulation continues, the Streamflow rises to a
maximum (peak flow) and a flood wave moves downstream
through the main channel.
 The flow eventually recedes or subsides as all areas drain
out.
Measured Flow for Brays Bayou

30,000 29,000 cfs

25,000 Jun 76
Flow, cfs

Apr 79
20,000
Sep 83
15,000 Mar 92
Mar 97
10,000

5,000

3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24
Time, hrs
 Problems in Hydrology:
 Extreme weather and rainfall
 Streamflow and runoff predictions
 River routing and hydraulic conditions
 Overall water balances - local and global scales
 Flood control and drought measures
 Water supply for growing communities
 Watershed management for agric/urban development
 Applications in Hydrology:
 Surfacewater supply and delivery systems (sewers)
 Ground water for supply, wells, and springs
 Contamination and environmental quality issue
– Lake and Coastal Bay quality studies
– River quality for drinking and recreation
– Hazardous waste studies for GW contamination
– Waste sources from urban/industrial runoff
 Land use impacts from urban development
 Disaster mitigation and flood control
 Technology has Revolutionized
the Field of Hydrology
 High Speed Digital Computation
 Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
 Large Hydrologic and Meteorologic Databases
 GPS and LIDAR methods for ground surveys
 RADAR rainfall estimates from NEXRAD
 Advanced forecasting tools for severe weather and
flood Alert
 A Note on Units
 Rainfall volume is normally measured in inches or cm
 Rainfall rate or intensity in inches/hr or cm/hr
 Infiltration is measured in inches/hr or cm/hr
 Evaporation is measured in inches or in/hr (cm/hr)
 Streamflow is measured in cfs or m3/s
 One acre-ft of volume is 43,560 ft3 of water
 1 ac-inch/hr is approx. equal to 1.008 cfs
 Ground water flows are measured as ft3/day or m3/day
Rainfall and Conversion to Runoff

 Use either design rainfalls or historical events

 Spread uniformly over a given basin area
 Use Rational Method to compute peak flow for
small basin area - few hundred acres
 Use Unit hydrograph to compute response for
larger basins - 10 to 100 sq miles.
Rainfall and Conversion to Runoff

 Rational Method predicts peak flow

 Qp = C I A in cfs
– C = runoff coefficient - fcn of land use
– I = rainfall intensity at time of concentration Tc
– A = watershed area in acres
– Tc = time for water to travel from most distant pt to
the outlet of a watershed
Rational Method uses IDF Curves
 Design Rainfalls
 Design Storm from
HCFCD and NWS
 Based on Statistical
Analysis of Data
 5,10, 25, 50, 100
Year Events
 Various Durations
 T.S. Allison vs. the 100-year
(Inches of rainfall)

1-hr 3-hr 6-hr 12-hr

1976 TMC 3.8 7.5 9.8 10.4

Allison (a) 4.3 10.3 12.1 14.7

100-yr (b) 4.6 6.8 8.5 10.5

Diff (a–b) –0.3 3.5 3.6 4.2

Note: Allison dropped 8.5 inches in 2 hours

 RADAR Rainfall Estimates

 NEXRAD provides real-time data

on a ~16 km2 (6 mi2) grid
 Equivalent to about 21 rain gages
in Brays Bayou watershed
 Each estimate represents an average rainfall
amount over the entire 4 x 4 km2 area
 NEXRAD rainfall estimates compare well with
point rain gage measurements (r2 ~ 0.9)
 FAS – NEXRAD

Midnight 1 a.m.
 Hydrologic Theory
 One of the principal objectives in
hydrology is to transform rainfall that has
fallen over a watershed area into flows to
be expected in the receiving stream.
 Losses must be considered such as
infiltration or evaporation (long-term)
 Watershed characteristics are important
 Loss Rate Method:
Initial and Uniform Loss Rate Method

 Initial Amount Lost

to Infiltration (in)

Inches/Hour
 Uniform Loss at a
Constant Rate
(in/hr)
Example: Initial Loss = 0.5 in, Uniform Loss = 0.05 in/hr
 Unit Hydrograph Theory
 The unit hydrograph represents the basin
response to 1 inch (1 cm) of uniform net
rainfall for a specified duration, D.
 Linear method originally devised in 1932.
 Works best for relatively small subareas -
in the range of 1 to 10 sq miles.
 Several computational methods exist.
Synthetic UH Methods
• Snyder’s Method (1938)
• Clark Method (1945)
• Nash (1958)
• SCS (1964, 1975)
• Espey-Winslow (1968)
• Kinematic Wave (1970s)
SCS Triangular UH Example
1 inch of Net Rain over D = 1.6 hr
 SCS Triangular UH Example
Volume = QpTr /2 + QpB /2
Qp

Qp = 2Vol/(TR + B)
TR B
B = 1.67 TR

Qp = 484 A / TR
tp = lag time
TR = D/2 + tp
L = length to divide in ft
Y = Avg basin slope in % tp = L0.8 (S + 1)/ 1900 (Y)0.5
S = 1000/CN - 10 (ins)
SCS Methods
Triangular UH
CN = curve number
for various soil/LU
See SCS Table 2.1

Dimensionless UH
 Hydrograph Convolution
1 2 3 Add and Lag Method

2 FINAL
STORM
HYDROG

3 T

Add up the ordinates of all three to produce storm hydrograph

This add and lag procedure can be extended to large basins
 Flow in Pipes and Channels
 Rain falls over watershed URBAN RUNOFF
 A portion becomes pipe flow
Overland Flow
(storm water).
Total Hydrograph
 The remaining portion
becomes overland flow in

Outflow
streets and yards.
 The total runoff reaches a Pipe Flow
(SWWM)
Pipe Flow
stream and is the sum of both
components Time
Hydraulic Calculation - Pipes
(z + P/g + V2/2g)1 = (z + P/g + V2/2g)2 + hL
E = total energy = z + P/g + V2/2g at pts 1 and 2

hL
P1

P2

z1
z2
Datum (MSL)
Manning’s Equation Open Channels

A A A

P = Wetted Perimeter Pipe P = Circum. Natural Channel

1.49 2
Q= AR 3 S
n
Small Watershed Response

Brays
Bayou
 Digital Elevation Model
Based on 1999 Aerial Survey

DEM Used to Determine Overland

Flow Connectivity and Storage
 Existing Pipe Network

60”

Rice
7.5’x11’
Hermann
Park
NEW
PIPES
TMC
 Bayou Camera - June 8-9, 2001
Provided valuable data on water levels and timing

10 p.m. 12 p.m. 11:00 a.m

Texas Medical Center - Moursund Westbound
6/10/01 - 6:44 AM
Fannin at Holcombe Overpass - TS Allison
6/9/01 - 5:58 AM
 T.S. Allison - Houston,
June 9, 2001

Rice Blvd at Entrance 16

looking west

Jeep indicating high water

mark - inlet to Harris Gully
Southwest Freeway (US 59)

Detention Storage between

Mandell and Hazard

Looking West

Looking East
 Flood Warning Systems
Downtown Houston
Emergency
Response

 Flood Doors
 Flood Gates
 Facility Entrances
 Communications
 Operations
 Training
The Woodlands - a Totally Planned Community

The community was designed as if it were fully

developed with minimal impacts on water.
Strict requirements were made about land use and
natural drainage concepts were used throughout.
Mountain runoff - steep and
dependent on snowmelt
Hoover Dam
 Hoover Dam Facts

Hoover Dam supplied farmers with

dependable supply of water in
Nevada, California and Arizona.

Because of the Hoover Dam, the

Colorado River was controlled for
the first time in history.
 Mansfield Dam Facts
 Mansfield Dam sits across a
canyon at Marshall Ford on
the Colorado River west of
Austin, Texas
 Built from 1937 to 1941
 Named in 1941 in honor of
U.S. Representative J.J.
Mansfield
 Created a 50 mile long lake
that is hundreds of feet deep
in lower end
Mansfield Dam Facts
 Mansfield Dam, owned by
LCRA, created Lake
Travis
 Mansfield Dam and
Lake Travis are the only
structures in the
Highland Lakes chain
specifically designed to
contain floodwaters in
the lower Colorado
River basin
 Variable level lake
 Cleanest in all of Texas
 Agricultural runoff in
California - source of chemicals