SPATIAL HYDROLOGY

Bahram Saghafian

Presented at:
Civil Engineering Department
Sharif Technical University
Jan. 2002
What is Spatial Hydrology?

Study of the motion of the earth’s

waters (and the transport of their
constituents) with the explicit
reference to the spatial dimension and
using the data structure and functions
of geographic information systems
Major Developments

• Increasing availability of spatial hydrologic data

(DEM, Images, etc.)
• Inclination towards the use of spatial data bases
and GIS functions in hydrology
• Need to study detailed spatial distribution of
hydrologic processes and their effects
• Development of distributed hydrologic models
• Need to disaggregate synthesized hydrologic
responses (flood hydrograph, sediment load, etc.)
• Progress in high-powered computing equipments
Active Areas in Spatial
Surface Hydrology
• Effect of land use changes
• Floodplain mapping and hazard
• Flood potential and risk mapping within watersheds
• Spatial optimization of flood control countermeasures
• Site selection for hydro-climatological stations
• Distributed watershed erosion mapping
• Pollutant affected areas
• Distributed runoff/snowmelt/sediment modeling
• Spatial correlation of climatological factors with geo-
environmental characteristics
• Distributed modeling of hydro-climatologic and geo-
morphologic characteristics
Geographic Information System

• Software tool for storing, managing,

manipulating spatial (geographic) data
• Has four components: data entry, data
management, manipulation and analysis,
and data output
• Models geographic features using points,
lines, and cells in either vector or cellular
data models
GIS Relation to Spatial
Hydrology

• Spatial hydrology deals with spatially

distributed processes and features
• GIS can handle spatial (geographic) data
• Conjunctive use of GIS and hydrology is
natural and unavoidable
Distributed Rainfall-Runoff
Modeling of Golabdareh
Catchment
Distinctive Algorithms and Tools

• Upgrade time-area rainfall-runoff

transformation into a distributed technique
• Determine travel time based on kinematic
wave theory
• Introduce, for the first time, temporally-
variable isochrone hydrograph estimation
method
Digitally extracted drainage network
50-yr Flood Hydrograph

50-Year Hydrograph Convolution

40

36

32

28
Discharge-(m ^3/s)

24
Q1 (m3/s)
20 Q2(m3/s)
16 Q3 (m3/s)
12
Q4 (m3/s)
Q5(m3/s)
8
Q6(m3/s)
4
QTotal(m3/s)
0
1

10

13

16

22

25

28

31

34

37

40

43

46

49

52

55

61

64

67

70

73

76
19

58
Tim e-(m in)
 Effect of Land Use Changes in
Nekarood River Basin
• Land use change detection using remotely-
sensed data
• Hydrologic simulation of floods
• Prediction of future effects based of land
use change scenarios
• Further application: How to manage
spatially the timber harvesting and other
land activities
View of Nekarood River Basin
View of Nekarood River Basin
Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
Land Use Map, Year 1346
Land Use map, Year 1372
Land Use Map, Year 1379
Land Use Change Over Years

900
800 1346 1372 1379

700
600
500
Area

400
300
200
100
0
F(P) F(M) F(D) A R(P) R(N) RES.
Land Use
FOREST(POOR) :F(P) FOREST(MEDUM) :F(M)
FOREST(DENSE) :F(D) AGRICULTURE :A
RANGE LAND(POOR) :R(P) RANGE LAND(NORMAL) :R(N)
RESIDENTAL :RES.
Change in peak floods

125
1372 1379

120

115
Q/Qbase

110

105

100
20 50 100 500 1000
RETURN PERIOD (Yr)
Sediment Deposition Spatial
Pattern
Minab Dam

<60
60-65
65-70
70-75
75-80
80-85
85-90
90-95
95-100
0 4000

>100
 Spatial correlation between
rainfall and vegetation

• Daily rainfall maps using geostatistical tools

• Terrain mapping units defined
• NOAA satellite images processed for NDVI
vegetation index
• Spatial correlation of rainfall and NDVI studied
on 10-day and monthly basis with different lag
times
Terrain mapping Units
Sample daily rainfall map
Results

• Monthly NDVI vegetation index follow

monthly rainfall data with a lag of one to
two months and are best correlated with
the bimonthly antecedent rainfall.
• The multiple regression method is best
suited compared with others methods.
• Results may be used for rainfall spatial
variation and drought mapping.
 Drought SDF Mapping

• Drought Severity-Duration-Frequency
analysis using run theory
• Spatial extent of drought severity
Flood Potential Prioritization

and Spatial Mapping

• Set up a selected semi-distributed hydrologic
model for the watershed
• Identify and rank the areas (sub-watersheds)
based on their quantitative contribution in
discharge characteristics at the outlet
• Determine the impact of sub-watershed factors
on the outlet flood peak
• Propose priority flood control measures
• Ongoing: conduct research on observed
discharge data and/or use a fully distributed
model
Snow Mapping & Snowmelt
Runoff Simulation

• Use satellite images for continuous mapping

• Propose an algorithm for snow/cloud/ground
delineation
• Simulate snowmelt and rainfall runoff using
SRM model and processed images