Chapter 1 - Introduction

1. What is Hydrology ?
Hydrology
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The science that deal with occurrence, circulation and distribution of water on earth.

It is the study of water as it move through the earth in various components of hydrologic cyle

2. Hydrology is concerned with:

a. Water in the air precipitation ( rainfall, snowfall, hail)
b. Water on earth flow in rivers, lakes, snow on hills.
c. Water underground groundwater (waters in pores of soil and rock)

3. Hydrology is a broad subject of inter-disciplinary nature including meteorology, statistics, chemistry, physics and fluid
mechanics.

4. Hydrology can be classified into 2:

a. Scientific Hydrology the study that focused on academic aspects.
b. Engineering Hydrology ( Applied Hydrology) the study that focused on engineering applications.

5. Engineering Hydrology deals with:

a. Estimation of water resources
b. Study of the processes precipitation, runoff, evapotranspiration, and their interaction
c. Studying the problems floods, droughts, strategies to deal with them.

6. Hydrologic Cycle
Figure from the book

The hydrologic cycle from my notes

7. The 8 components of Hydrologic cycle

a) Evaporation
b) Transpirationc) Condensation d) Precipitatione) Interceptionf) Surface Runoffg) Infiltration-

heat from sun caused the water from rivers, lakes and oceans to
evaporate into the atmosphere
from plants leaf into the atmosphere.
of water particles in space to forms cloud
rainfall on land and sea
rain stuck to plants leaf, vegetation, wetting the ground
Water flowing on land surface into river and then flow to sea
Some amount of water will infiltrate and percolate into the ground

h) Groundwater flow- subsurface flow of water, and it might come out as springs (can
also see it in well)

8. Main components of the hydrologic cycle can be classified into 2

i. Transportation (flow)
ii. Storage

9. A qualitative representation of the hydrologic cycle was introduced by Horton. It showed 2 components which are
transportation and storage

10. The continuity principle called Water Budget equation (Hydrologic equation) can calculate the quantities of water
going through the hydrologic cycle

11. What is a catchment area ?

Catchment area

is an area of land draining into one river at a given location

-

is also called drainage area, drainage basin, river basin, watershed

12. A catchment area is separated from another catchment area by a ridge (long narrow hilltop) called water divide . The
water divide become the catchment boundary.

13. How do we draw the water divides ? We use Topographic map - a map made of contours of constant elevation.

Topographic map normally look like this. Can you see where is the peak and where is the valley? Note the peak and the
river (dry river)

This is topo map in 3 dimension. To help you visualize how rainwater will flow from peak of mountain into rivers.
-

Note the catchment boundary and the catchment area

When it rain, only rainwater from this area contribute to flow at the outlet
Rain that fall outside this area will flow to another river.

This is another 3D photo showing the top of mountain as water divide. The red line is the catchment boundary.

-To manage water in the area, we need to know the amount of water that fall in the area = amount of rain X
coefficient of landuse X size of area.
- To design hydraulic structure in this catchment, we also need to know amount of rain, amount of water, and water
level in the river during the ARI of 100 year flood. ( ARI = Average Recurrence Interval = Return period. It is the worst
flood that occur in a 100 year, statistically. Elaborate this with figure )

14. After we draw the catchment boundaries, we can determine the size of the catchment area using grid method or
using a device called planimeter.
For the grid method, we know the size of each pixel, based on the scale bar of the map given. We can then calculate
the size of area.

The planimeter is like below. The procedure is:

1.
2.
3.
4.

You put in the scale of the map, using digital planimeter, say 1:100,000.
You use the magnifying glass and start at one point of the catchment boundary.
You move the glass clockwise until it reached the starting point.
The planimeter will show the size of area of the catchment

15. Exercise Drawing a possible catchment boundaries of a catchment.

16. Comparison of the answer

17. Drawing the catchment area of UKM the red area is the peak of the hill

Part of the catchment boundary is as below. Note how the water divide is along the highest peak of the hills

18. Water Budget Equation

- It is also called Continuity Equation.
- The basis is:

Mass Inflow Mass Outflow = Change in Mass Storage

in - out = S

- In Hydrologic calculations, the volumes are often expressed as average depths over the catchment area.
- An example is :
- Annual streamflow from 10 km2 catchment is 107 m2 .
- Annual Streamflow = 107 m3 / 10 km2 x 1000,000 m2/ 1 km2 = 1 m.
- So sometimes we say streamflow from area A is 1 m. It means the streamflow is 1 m
for each unit area of the catchment.
-

The equation is

P R G E T = S
P = Precipitation
R = Surface Runoff
G = Net groundwater flow out
E = Evaporation
T = Transpiration
S = Change in storge

19. Example 1.1 (page 6)

Lake surface elevation = 103.2m above datum

Inflow = 6.0 m3/sec
Outflow = 6.5 m3/sec
Rainfall = 145 mm
Evaporation = 6. 10 cm
- Write Water Budget equation for the lake
- Calculate water surface elevation at the end of the month.

The complete Water Budget Equation is: ( It + PA ) - ( Ot + EA ) = S

I = Inflow into the lake

O = Outflow from the lake

t = duration of the runoff = 30 days

P = Precipitation
E = Evaporation

S = Change in storage

= 1 month = 30 days x 24 hour/1 day x 60 minutes/1 hour x 60 sec/1 minutes

= 2.592 x 106 sec = 2.59 Msec

I t = 6.0 x 2.592

Q t = 6.5 x 2.592

(M=Million=Mega.

Note --- Kilo, Mega, Giga, Tera)

= 15.552 Mm3
= 16.848 Mm3

Input due to rain = PA = 145mm x 1m/1,000,000mm x 5000 ha x 10,000m2/ha

= 7.25 Mm3
Outflow due to evaporation = EA = 6.10cm x 1m/100cm x 5000 ha x 10,000m2/ha
= 3.05 Mm3

Calculating everything:

( It + PA ) - ( Ot + EA ) = S
S = 15.552 + 7.25 - 16.848 - 3.05 = 2.904 Mm3

Change in Water Elevation = 2.904 x 106 / 5000 x 100 x 100 = 0.058 m

Water level at the end of the month = 103. 2 + 0.058 = 103.258 m above datum

Execise 1.1a = Exercise in class

The data for the same catchment for the following month of 30 days is as follow. Average inflow is
7m3/sec, average outflow is 8.5 m3/sec, rainfall is 160 mm and evaporation is 7cm
- Calculate the water surface elevation at the end of the month

20. Example 1.2 (page 6)

a) The Water Budget equation for the case above will be

R=PL

R = Runoff = surface runoff flow volume

P = Precipitation = Rainfall volume
L = Losses or Abstraction = water not available to runoff due to infiltration, soil moisture and groundwater
storage
P

= Input due to rain in the 10 hours

= 150ha x 10,000m2/ha x 10.5cm x 1m/100cm
= 157,500 m3

= Runoff Volume = Outflow volume at the catchment outlet in 10 hours

= 1.5 m3/sec x 10 hour x 3600sec/1hour
= 54,000 m3

=PR
= 157,500 m3 54,000 m3
= 103,000 m3

b) Ratio of runoff to rainfall

Runoff coefficients =

54,000 / 157,500 = 0.343

Example 1.2 a)
The following month, the same catchment received rainfall of 12 cm in 90 minutes. It experienced a runoff for 10 hours
with average discharge of 1.4 m3/sec.
a) Calculate the losses / abstraction / (infiltration+ground storage + evaporation + transpiration)
b) What can you tell the soil condition for case 2 compared to case 1 ? Is it wetter or drier ?

21. Example 1.3 (page 7)

Example 1.3 a
If the catchment area above is actually 160 km2 and it received 130 cm of rainfall a year., and all other data is the same
as above, what is the runoff coefficient of the catchment ?

22. World Water Balance

- The total quantity of water in the world is about 1386 M km3 (1386 x 106 km3)
- 96.5% of all water on earth is in the ocean and is saline ( water containing salt)
- 1.69 % of all water on earth is in the gound/groundwater. Some are fresh water, some are saline water
- 1.7% of all water on earth is in ice caps and glaciers
- Look at the table below to see the percentage of water distributed on this earth

- Note that of all water on earth, only 2.5% is actually fresh water which is 35.0 M km 3 .
- Of the 35 M km3 of fresh water, 24.4M km3 is contained in frozen condition as polar ice or ice on mountain.
- Thus only 10.6 M km3 of fresh water is liquid and fresh.
- Look at the table of Global Annual water Balance below.

- Note the evaporation amount from ocean and evaporation amount from land.
- Annual water balance studies of the sub-areas of the world is shown below

- Note that Africa is the driest continent with only 20% of rainfall become runoff.
- Note that Asia is the largest continent.
- Water balance studies on the oceans are shown below.

Note the size of each oceans. Indian ocean is quite small but received the 2nd highest amount of rain.

Figure below show the Global Freshwater Resources in the world

Most of our water supply come from surface water, specifically our rivers.