CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
By Ayansa T. ([Link]. In Met. And HYDR., [Link]. in WRE)
Lecturer at Ambo University Woliso Campus, Civil Eng.
Introduction
Hydro+ logos (Both are Greek words)
“Hydro” means water and “logos” means study.
Hydrology is a science which deals with the occurrence, circulation and
Distribution of water of the earth and earth’s atmosphere.
Hydrological Cycle: It is also known as water cycle.
• A Continuous process in which water is evaporated from water surfaces
and the oceans, moves in land as moist air masses, and produces
precipitation, if the correct vertical lifting conditions exist.
Stages of the Hydrologic cycle
Precipitation
Infiltration
Interception
Depression storage
Run-off
Evaporation
Transpiration
Groundwater
Water Budget/Balance Equation
• The area of land draining into a stream or a watercourse at a
given location is known as catchment area.
• It is also called as drainage area or drainage basin.
• For a given problem area, say a catchment, in an interval of
time t, the continuity equation for water in its various phases
is written as.
Water Budget/Balance Equation
• If the density of the inflow, outflow and storage volumes are the
same
Where
• =Inflow volume of water into the problem area during the time
period,
• =Outflow volume to water from the problem area during the
time period, and
• ∆𝑆=change in the storage of the water volume over and under
the given area during the given period.
Water Budget/Balance Equation
• In hydrologic calculations, the volumes are often expressed as
average depths over the catchment area.
• Thus, for example, if the annual stream flow from a 10km2
catchment is 107m3, it corresponds to a depth of
• Rainfall, evaporation and often runoff volumes are expressed in
units of depth over the catchment.
• While realizing that all the terms in a hydrological water budget
may not be known to the same degree of accuracy, an expression
for the water budget of a catchment for a time interval t is written
as
Water Budget in Land surface
Water Budget in Groundwater
• R (Net Surface Flow)=
• E (Net Evaporation) =
• T (Net Transpiration)=
• G (Net Groundwater Flow)=
P-R-E-T-G=S
• This Equation is the water budget equation for the catchment .
Water Budget/Balance Equation
• Note that all these terms can be expressed as depth over the
catchment area, (for Eq. in centimeters), and in fact this is a
very common unit.
• Further, the infiltration does not occur explicitly in the water
budget as the infiltration, which is a loss to the runoff process
is a gain to the ground water system.
Example 1: a lake had a water surface elevation of 103.200 m above
datum at the beginning of a certain month. In that month the lake
received
an average inflow of 6.0 m3/s from surface runoff sources.
In the same period the outflow from the lake had an average
value of 6.5m3/s.
Further, in that month, the lake received a rainfall of 145 mm
and
The evaporation from the lake surface was estimated as 6.10cm.
Write the water budget equation for the lake and calculate the water
surface elevation of the lake at the end of the month.
The average lake surface area can be taken as 5000 ha. Assume that
there is no contribution to or from the ground water storage.
Water Budget/Balance Equation
• Solution: In a time period the water budget for the lake can be written
as
where
• = average inflow rate,
• = average outflow rate,
• P = precipitation,
• E = evaporation,
• A = surface area of the lake and S = change in lake storage volume.
Here t = 1 month = 30 x 24 x 60 x 60 = 2.592x10 6s = 2.592 Ms In one month:
Inflow volume I t 6.0 x 2.592 15.552 M m3
Outflow vlume Q t 6.5 x 2.592 16.848 M m3
14.5 x 5000 x100 x100
Input due to precipitat ion PA 6
M m3 7.25M m3
100 x10
6.10 5000 x100 x100
outflow due to evaporatio n EA x 3.05 M m3
100 106
Hence S 15.552 7.25 16.848 3.05 2.904 M m 3
S 2.904 x106
Change in elevation z 0.058m
A 5000 x100 x100
New water surface elevation at the end of the month
= 103.200 + 0.058
= 103.258m above the datum.