Hydrology

Unit 1:
Introduction to Hydrology
 Instructional Objectives
• Up on completion of this unit, the students shall
learn about the:
• Concept of hydrology (definition & profession)
• Hydrologic cycle
• Distribution of water on earth
• Water as physical substance
• Development of hydrology (historical)
• Hydrological software
 Definition
• For centuries, people have been investigating:
• where water comes from and where it goes,
• why some of it is salty and some is fresh,
• why sometimes there is not enough and sometimes too
much.
• All questions and answers related to water have been
grouped together into a discipline - hydrology.
• Hydrology is the science concerned with the
occurrence, distribution, movement and properties
of all the waters of the Earth.
 Definition (cont…)
• A good understanding of all the hydrologic
processes is important for:
• The assessment of the water resources,
• Their management and conservation on global and
regional scales.

• Hydrology is an independent profession:

• But closely tied to engineering and applied sciences.
• It’s skills and methods are based on laws governing
hydrological phenomena, professional experience and
observed data;
 Hydrology as a Profession
• Expected skills/knowledge/characteristics:
• Technical accuracy
• Work within limited budget and time frames
• Computer literate
• Hydrologists are mostly concerned with 3 issues:
 Water Use
• Withdrawal of water from different sources for supply to cities,
industries, agriculture, hydropower, recreation and the protection of
ecosystem
• Specifying and predicting inflow to water systems under both normal and
drought conditions
• Water resource planning and management
 Hydrology as Profession
 Water control
• Control of hydrological extremes such as floods, erosion and
sediment transport
• Development of guidelines and regulatory documents regarding the
protection of floodplains and storm water detention

 Pollution control
• Prevention of the spread of pollutants and contaminants in natural
water bodies
• Determination of the source and extent of pollution
• Locating point sources of pollution, e.g. landfills and chemical
waste dumps.
• Identifying non-point sources of pollution, e.g. runoff of pesticides,
fertilisers and various other solutes and liquids
 Hydrology in Civil Engineering

• Hydrological analysis supplies the basis for planning,

design and implementation of water related
engineering projects.
• Example: Design of a water supply system for a new
urban development involves addressing the following
typical problems / questions:
• Identifying a suitable source of water supply;
• Determination of the amount of water available and
comparing it with the predicted domestic demand based on
population growth.
 Hydrology in Civil Engineering

• Identifying contributing catchment areas; establishing

precipitation-runoff relationships for the catchment areas;
and evaluating all available hydrological and meteorological
data.
• Quantifying all notable sources of runoff and identifying all
existing/ future users downstream of the source.
• Evaluating the possibility of flood extremes during the
construction period of the storage in order to determine the
height of coffer dams.
• The size of the storage must be linked to the design period
(recurrence interval) of the structure.
 Hydrologic Cycle

• The total amount of water on earth is invariable.

• Water is continuously renewed while circulating
between oceans, land and the atmosphere.
• All processes keep the water in motion and
constitute the hydrologic cycle:
evaporation transpiration,
condensation, infiltration,
Precipitation, storage,
interception runoff,
groundwater flow.
The Hydrologic Cycle (Musy, 2001)
Hydrologic Cycle
 Hydrologic Cycle
• The assessment of water resources availability in a
specific region is based on the volume of runoff in that
region;
• Volume of each water body in the hydrosphere is fully
reloaded during the hydrologic cycle, but the time period
required varies;
Water body Period of renewal
Groundwater 1400 years
Lakes 17 years
Rivers 16 days
Atmospheric moisture 8 days
Water in the biosphere Several hours
 Distribution of Water on Earth

• Current estimates of amount of water contained in

the hydrosphere (combined mass of water found on,
under, and over the surface of a planet) weigh up to
1386 million cubic kilometers that are divided as
shown in the Figure below
 Distribution of Water on Earth

Distribution of freshwater on Earth

Component of freshwater % of the hydrosphere content

Glaciers & Permanent Snow Cover 1.74 %
Groundwater 0.75 %
Freshwater Lakes 0.0066 %
Rivers 0.0002 %
Atmosphere 0.0009 %
Biosphere 0.0001 %

Freshwater available for human use (0.3 % of Earth's water)

 Distribution of Water on Earth

• Freshwater is only 2.5% - 3% from the total, yet most

of it is out of human reach.
• Freshwater usable by humans represents 0.3% of all
water on earth and is drawn from underground, lakes
and rivers;
• Groundwater is the second largest storage of
freshwater and the most used by humans.
• People in the arid and semi-arid regions, use
groundwater exclusively for all their needs.
• Still, groundwater is not always within easy reach.
 Distribution of Water on Earth

• The withdrawal of groundwater becomes difficult and

expensive when it is confined over 800m depth.
• The surface water bodies, as lakes and rivers, hold a
very small amount of freshwater.
• Unlike groundwater, surface water is easily
accessible, but liable to pollution.
• Moreover, surface water is unevenly distributed with
regard to region & population.
 Transport and Rock Cycles

• Water flowing through the hydrological cycle doesn’t just

move itself, but also takes suspended and dissolved
material with it.
• Acid rain breaks down and dissolves fragments of rock which
is then carried back to the ocean via rivers.
• These sediments consolidate to form sedimentary rocks.
Sedimentary Rocks

Redistributed
Sinks deeper
over earth’s
into the
surface through
earth’s mantle
plate tectonics
 Carbon Cycle
• Storage and exchange of carbon between atmosphere,
hydrosphere and geosphere
• Carbon is one of the elements taken up and used in living
organisms
• Much more complex than
hydrological cycle.
 Carbon Cycle
• Three main processes involved in the carbon cycle:

• The uptake of carbon in the form

of CO2 by plants through the
process of photosynthesis. It’s
released back into the atmosphere
through the processes of respiration and decomposition

• The balance between dissolution of carbon dioxide into the

sea and the release back into the atmosphere

• The weathering and dissolution of carbon-rich rocks

 Climate and Water
Distribution-Global & SA
• Climate and Topography
• Precipitation is not distributed evenly over the space and
time because of:
 Topography, cold and warm currents in oceans,
 position of land masses and mountains
• As a result, precipitation is highly seasonal with a great
extent of spatial variation and areal distribution.
• SA’s climate ranges from semi-arid to hyper-arid
 Hyper-arid areas: < 25mm/year
 Arid areas: 25- 200mm/year
 Semi-arid areas: 200- 250mm/year
• Evaporation exceeds precipitation in most of the cases
• Climate highly variable over SA
 Types and distribution of
water body in SA
• Water bodies can be divided into:

• Standing (Lentic) and

• Running (Lotic) systems

• Different organisms inhabit both Lentic & Lotic

ecosystems
 Water as a physical
substance
• Water molecules are one of the most versatile
structures known.
• Phases of water are – liquid, solid, gas
• Absorbs energy in the form of heat and releases
equivalent amounts when going from gas to liquid to
solid.
• Acts as buffer for the planet against temperature
extremes – absorbs heat when melting and gives heat
when freezing.
 Water as a Physical
Substance

Freezing
SOLID STATE LIQUID STATE
Melting (Heat)

Evaporation (Heat Condensation

absorbed) (Heat released)

GASEOUS
(Water Vapor)

Various forms of water

 Development of Hydrology
• Examples of various hydrologic principles which were
successfully applied in practice in ancient times:
• Early Chinese irrigation and flood control works and
• Greek and Roman aqueducts (channels)
• Ancient science was based only on logic and instinct,
without measurements and observations:
• The theories were faulty most of the time.
• Homer (8th century B.C.) believed in the existence of
large subterranean reservoirs that supplied rivers,
seas, springs and wells.
 Development of Hydrology
• Roman engineer Marcus Vitruvius (1st century B.C.)
developed an early theory of the hydrologic cycle in his paper
'On Architecture'.
• According to his theory the rain and snow falling in mountains infiltrated
into the ground and later appeared in the lowland as streams and
springs.
• His work was the standard reference book on hydrology during the
Middle Ages.
• In the late 15th century Leonardo da Vinci and Bernard
Palissy gave, independently of each other, an accurate
explanation of the hydrologic cycle.
• The theories were based on observations of hydrological phenomena.
 Development of Hydrology
• In the 17th century the modern science of hydrology
was established by Perrault, Mariotte and Halley.
• Perrault measured the rainfall and runoff in the Seine River
and proved that rainfall contributes significantly to river flow.
• He also measured evaporation and capillarity.

• Mariotte recorded the velocity of flow in the Seine River and

made measurements of the cross section, estimating the
discharge.
• Halley measured evaporation of the Mediterranean Sea.
 Development of Hydrology
• The Bernoulli piezometer and theorem, the Pitot
tube and Chezy's formula are representative
achievements of the 18th century.
• During 19th century experimental hydrology made
considerable progress:
• Darcy's law of flow in porous media and
• Dupuit-Thiem's well formula were elaborated
• Early 20th century, governmental agencies developed
their own programs of hydrologic research.
• Sherman's unit hydrograph,
 Development of Hydrology
• Horton's infiltration theory and
• Theis's non-equilibrium approach to well hydraulics were the
results of research programs.

• After 1950 the progress in sciences and the high-

speed digital computers opened new perspectives in
hydrology.
• Hymsim (rainfall-runoff model)
• HEC-RAS (Hydraulic modeling and analysis software)
• ArcGIS (Mapping and spatial analysis)