Water Resources:

Water Resource Engineering is a specific kind of civil engineering that involves the design of
new systems and equipment that help manage human water resources. Some of the areas Water Resource
Engineers touch on are water treatment facilities, underground wells, and natural springs.

Water Resource Engineers must create new equipment and systems to increase the effectiveness
and efficiency of water treatment and aquatic resource management. A typical workday involves the
analysis of data from relevant areas, then designing new or improved facilities to enhance the cleansing
effects of the water treatment system. A Water Resource Engineer must take budgetary constraints,
government regulations, and other factors into consideration when designing these systems. A Water
Resource Engineer may then oversee the construction and implementation of these systems to ensure that
they are properly assembled. After completion, they may manage the maintenance of these systems.

Water Resources Planning:

Water Resources Planning and Management is the "parent" of water conservation and efficiency
in many organizations. The Alliance for Water Efficiency recommends that water conservation planning
be fully integrated into overall water resources supply planning so that the benefits and costs of
conservation programs can be compared against the benefits and costs of water supply options on a level
playing field.

Developing a number of water supply options that include water conservation is at the heart of integrated
resource planning (IRP). According to recent research published by the American Water Works
Association, one of the central tenets of IRP is achieving goals at the least cost. IRP can be useful in the
joint evaluation of supply-side and demand-side options in developing a resource portfolio. Water utilities
that once viewed themselves as being only in the water supply business, have redefined their mission as
one of providing safe and reliable water service (Chesnutt, et. al. 2007

Hydrology:

Hydrology is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water on Earth and
other planets, including the water cycle, water resources and environmental watershed sustainability. A
practitioner of hydrology is a hydrologist, working within the fields of earth or environmental
science, physical geography, geology or civil and environmental engineering.[1]

Hydrology subdivides into surface water hydrology, groundwater hydrology (hydrogeology), and marine
hydrology. Domains of hydrology include hydrometeorology, surface hydrology, hydrogeology, drainage-
basin management and water quality, where water plays the central role.

Oceanography and meteorology are not included because water is only one of many important aspects
within those fields.
Quantitative Hydrology:

The flow (discharge) of a water body determines its navigability, influences the supply of the
riparian population with process and drinking water, but in case of floods it can also lead to the
destruction of property, natural resources, and cultural heritage. Moreover, water transports dissolved
substances and sediments. The latter may be deposited in places where they become hindrances for
navigation and have to be removed by dredging. However, if sediments are constantly removed by natural
processes, the river will cut deeper and deeper into its surrounding landscape, the water level will drop,
and this may damage the sensitive riverside ecosystem. This interaction between water flow and sediment
transport is decisive for the geometry and appearance of the watercourse. The quantitative hydrological
factors of streamflow and sediment balance may influence both flora and fauna, as well as the usability of
the watercourse as a waterway.

Watershed:

A watershed is a basin-like landform defined by highpoints and ridgelines that descend into lower
elevations and stream valleys. A watershed carries water "shed" from the land after rain falls and snow
melts. Drop by drop, water is channeled into soils, groundwaters, creeks, and streams, making its way to
larger rivers and eventually the sea. Water is a universal solvent, affected by all that it comes in contact
with: the land it traverses, and the soils through which it travels. The important thing about watersheds is:
what we do on the land affects water quality for all communities living downstream.

Watershed Characteristics:

Geology characteristics: In many countries, geological maps and information may be already
available. However, the map scale may often be small and the information is not specific enough to cover
the watershed in question. Some rechecking and refinement are usually needed. If there is no existing
information, a brief survey is required. The basic geologic information needed is related to erosion and
sedimentation. Rock types, depth of weathering, structures, among others, are the main concerns.

Geomorphology characteristics: Geomorphology deals with land forms in a watershed. A survey

of land forms will result in a better understanding of the erosion process, hazards. For instance, a valley at
youth stage will have more active erosion than one at old stage. High stream density usually means quick
surface runoff and flash floods, etc. This kind of information, together with rock types and structures,
permits proper selection of sites for dams and roads as well as estimation of peak flows and timing, etc. In
addition to collection of descriptive land form information, there are some quantitative analysis methods
which can be used for comparison or interpretation.

Study of watershed/morphometric characteristics: Morphometric analysis is refers as the

quantitative evaluation of form characteristics of the earth surface and any landform unit. It incorporates
quantitative study of the various components such as, stream segments, basin length, basin parameters,
basin area, altitude, slope, profiles of the land which indicates the nature of development of the basin.

In general, the watersheds are selected for the morphometric analysis in following heads:
Linear Aspect: one dimension
Areal Aspect: two dimensions
Relief Aspect: three dimensions

Linear Aspect: The drainage network transport water and the sediments of a basin through a
single outlet, which is marked as the maximum order of the basin and conventionally the highest order
stream available in the basin considered as the order of the basin. The size of rivers and basins varies
greatly with the order of the basin. Ordering of streams is the first stage of basin analysis.

Stream Order (U)

Strahler (1952) system of ordering streams has been followed in general because of its simplicity where
the smallest, un-branched fingertip streams are designated as 1st order, the confluence of two 1st order
channels give a channel segments of 2nd order, two 2nd order streams join to form a segment of 3rd order
and so on. When two channel of different order join then the higher order is maintained.

Stream Number (Nu)

The total number of stream segments present in each order is the stream number (Nu).

Stream Length (Lu)

The total length of individual stream segments of each order is the stream length of that order.

Basin length (Lb):

Gregory and Walling (1973) defined the basin length as the longest in the basin in which are end being the
mouth.

Basin Area (A)

The area of the watershed is another important parameter like the length of the stream drainage. Schumm
(1956) established an interesting relation between the total watershed areas and the total stream lengths,
which are supported by the contributing areas.

Basin Perimeter (P)

Basin perimeter is the outer boundary of the watershed that enclosed its area. It is measured along the
divides between watersheds and may be used as an indicator of watershed size and shape.
 Stream Frequency (Fs)
The drainage frequency introduced by Horton (1932, p. 357 and 1945, p. 285) means stream frequency
(or channel frequency) Fs as the number of stream segments per unit area.

Length of Overland Flow (Lo)

The average length of overland flow is approximately half the average distance between stream channels
and is therefore approximately equals to half of reciprocal of drainage density (Horton, 1945).

Drainage Density (Dd)

Drainage density is the stream length per unit area in region of watershed (Horton, 1945, p.243 and 1932,
p. 357; Strahler, 1952, and 1958; Melton 1958) is another element of drainage analysis. Drainage density
is a better quantitative expression to the dissection and analysis of landform

Texture Ratio (Rt)

According to Schumm (1965), texture ratio is an important factor in the drainage morphometric analysis
which is depending on the underlying lithology, infiltration capacity and relief aspect of the terrain. The
texture ratio is expressed as the ratio between the first order streams and perimeter of the basin (Rt = Nl /
P)

Drainage Texture (Dt)

Drainage texture is one of the important concept of geomorphology which means that the relative spacing
of drainage lines. Drainage texture is also depends on the underlying lithology, infiltration capacity and
relief aspect of the terrain. Dt is total number of stream segments of all orders per perimeter of that area
(Horton, 1945). (Smith, 1950) has classified drainage texture into five different textures i.e., very coarse
(<2), coarse (2 to 4), moderate (4 to 6), fine (6 to 8) and very fine (>8).

Drainage Intensity (Di)

Faniran (1968) defines the drainage intensity, as the ratio of the stream frequency to the drainage density.
Low value of drainage intensity implies that drainage density and stream frequency have little effect on
the extent to which the surface has been lowered by agents of denudation. With these low values of
drainage density, stream frequency and drainage intensity, surface runoff is not quickly removed from the
watershed, making it highly susceptible to flooding, gully erosion and landslides.

Infiltration Number (If)

The infiltration number of a watershed is defined as the product of drainage density and stream frequency
and given an idea about the infiltration characteristics of the watershed. The higher the infiltration
number, the lower will be the infiltration and the higher ran-off.

Aerial Aspect (Shape Parameters)

The areal aspect is the two dimensional properties of a basin.

Form Factor (Ff)

According to Horton (1932), form factor may be defined as the ratio of basin area to square of the basin
length. The value of form factor would always be less than 0.754 (for a perfectly circular watershed).
Smaller the value of form factor, more elongated will be the watershed. The watershed with high form
factors have high peak flows of shorter duration, whereas elongated watershed with low form factor
ranges from 0.42 indicating them to be elongated in shape and flow for longer duration.

Elongation Ratio (Re)

According to Schumm (1965), elongation ratio is defined as the ratio of diameter of a circle of the same
area as the basin to the maximum basin length. Strahler states that this ratio runs between 0.6 and 1.0 over
a wide variety of climatic and geologic types. The varying slopes of watershed can be classified with the
help of the index of elongation ratio, i.e. circular (0.9-0.10), oval (0.8-0.9), less elongated (0.7-0.8),
elongated (0.5-0.7), and more elongated (< 0.5).

Circularity Ratio (Rc)

For the out-line form of watershed (Strahler, 1964, and Miller, 1953) used a dimensionless circularity
ratio as a quantitative method. Circularity ratio is defined as the ratio of watershed area to the area of a
circle having the same perimeter as the watershed and it is pretentious by the lithological character of the
watershed. Miller (1953) has described the basin of the circularity ratios range 0.4 to 0.5, which indicates
strongly elongated and highly permeable homogenous geologic materials.

Compactness Coefficient (Cc)

Compactness Coefficient is used to express the relationship of a hydrologic basin to that of a circular
basin having the same area as the hydrologic basin. A circular basin is the most susceptible from a
drainage point of view because it will yield shortest time of concentration before peak flow occurs in the
basin (Nooka Ratnam et al. 2005).

Groundwaters:

Groundwater (or ground water) is the water present beneath Earth's surface in soil pore spaces
and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer
when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in
rock become completely saturated with water is called the water table. Groundwater is recharged from,
and eventually flows to, the surface naturally; natural discharge often occurs at springs and seeps, and can
form oases or wetlands. Groundwater is also often withdrawn for agricultural, municipal, and industrial
use by constructing and operating extraction wells. The study of the distribution and movement of
groundwater is hydrogeology, also called groundwater hydrology.

Typically, groundwater is thought of as water flowing through shallow aquifers, but, in the
technical sense, it can also contain soil moisture, permafrost (frozen soil), immobile water in very low
permeability bedrock, and deep geothermal or oil formation water. Groundwater is hypothesized to
provide lubrication that can possibly influence the movement of faults. It is likely that much of Earth's
subsurface contains some water, which may be mixed with other fluids in some instances. Groundwater
may not be confined only to Earth. The formation of some of the landforms observed on Mars may have
been influenced by groundwater. There is also evidence that liquid water may also exist in the subsurface
of Jupiter's moon Europa.[1]

Groundwater is often cheaper, more convenient and less vulnerable to pollution than surface
water. Therefore, it is commonly used for public water supplies. For example, groundwater provides the
largest source of usable water storage in the United States, and California annually withdraws the largest
amount of groundwater of all the states.[2] Underground reservoirs contain far more water than the
capacity of all surface reservoirs and lakes in the US, including the Great Lakes. Many municipal water
supplies are derived solely from groundwater.[3]

Polluted groundwater is less visible, but more difficult to clean up, than pollution in rivers and
lakes. Groundwater pollution most often results from improper disposal of wastes on land. Major sources
include industrial and household chemicals and garbage landfills, excessive fertilizers and pesticides used
in agriculture, industrial waste lagoons, tailings and process wastewater from mines, industrial fracking,
oil field brine pits, leaking underground oil storage tanks and pipelines, sewage sludge and septic systems.

Groundwater Hydrology:

Hydrogeology is an interdisciplinary subject; it can be difficult to account fully for

the chemical, physical, biological and even legal interactions between soil, water, nature and society. The
study of the interaction between groundwater movement and geology can be quite complex. Groundwater
does not always flow in the subsurface down-hill following the surface topography; groundwater
follows pressure gradients (flow from high pressure to low) often following fractures and conduits in
circuitous paths. Taking into account the interplay of the different facets of a multi-component system
often requires knowledge in several diverse fields at both the experimental and theoretical levels. The
following is a more traditional introduction to the methods and nomenclature of saturated subsurface
hydrology, or simply the study of ground water content.