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The area of land draining into a stream or a water course at a given location is known as catchment area. It is also called as draining area or drainage basin. A catchment area is delineated from its neighboring catchments by ridge or watershed divide.
Area of the catchment up to a certain location on a river is measured by tracing its ridge upto that location on a topographic map. The catchment area affords a logical and convenient unit to study various aspects relating to the hydrology and water resources of the region. Therefore, its an important drainage characteristics used in hydrological analysis and design.
In hydrologic calculations, the volumes are often expressed as average depths, over the catchment area. E.g. if the annual stream flow from a catchment area of 10km2is 107 m3, the flow depth= =100cm
Rainfall, evaporation and often runoff volumes are expressed in units of depth over the catchment.
Based on the above philosophy of simple water budget equation, budget equation of a catchment can be written as follows: P-R-G-E-T=S
P-Precipitation
R-Runoff
G-Net GW flow outside the considered catchment area E-Evaporation T-Transpiration S- Change in storage
The storage consists of three components as : S=Ss+Ssm+Sg Ss = Surface water storage Ssm = Water in storage as soil moisture. Sg = Water in storage as groundwater Thus S= Ss+ Ssm+ Sg All terms have the dimension of volume. Also they can be expressed as depth over the catchment area.
In terms of rainfall-runoff relationship R=P-L L- Losses (water not available to runoff due to infiltration, evaporation, transpiration and surface storage)
In the above projects hydrological investigation for the proper assessment of the following factors are necessary: 1) The capacity of storage structures such as reservoirs 2) The magnitude of flood flows to enable safe disposal of the excess flow.