Unit Hydrographs

Transforming the Runoff

Unit Hydrograph Theory

Moving water off of the watershed
A mathematical concept Linear in nature

Uses convolution to transform the

excess precipitation to streamflow.

The Basic Process

Unit Hydrographs

Necessary for a single basin

Excess Precip. Model

Excess Precip.

Excess Precip.

Basin Routing UHG Methods

Runoff Hydrograph

Runoff Hydrograph

Stream and/or Reservoir Routing

Downstream Hydrograph

Unit Hydrograph Theory

Sherman - 1932
Horton - 1933 Wisler & Brater - 1949 - the hydrograph of surface runoff

resulting from a relatively short, intense rain, called a unit storm. The runoff hydrograph may be made up of runoff that is generated as flow through the soil (Black, 1990).

Unit Hydrograph Lingo

Duration Lag Time

Time of Concentration
Rising Limb Recession Limb (falling

limb) Peak Flow Time to Peak (rise time) Recession Curve Separation Base flow

Graphical Representation
Duration of excess precip.

Lag time
Time of concentration

Base flow

Methods of Developing UHGs

From Streamflow Data Synthetically

Snyder SCS Time-Area (Clark, 1945)

Fitted Distributions

Unit Hydrograph
The hydrograph that results from 1-inch of excess

precipitation (or runoff) spread uniformly in space and time over a watershed for a given duration.
The key points :

1-inch of EXCESS precipitation Spread uniformly over space - evenly over the watershed Uniformly in time - the excess rate is constant over the time interval There is a given duration

100.0000

200.0000

300.0000

400.0000

500.0000

600.0000

700.0000

0.0000

Surface Response

Baseflow

Derived Unit Hydrograph

0. 00 0 0. 0 16 00 0. 32 0 0. 0 48 00 0. 64 0 0. 0 80 00 0. 96 0 1. 0 12 0 1. 0 28 00 1. 44 0 1. 0 60 00 1. 76 0 1. 0 92 00 2. 08 0 2. 0 24 00 2. 40 0 2. 0 56 0 2. 0 72 00 2. 88 0 3. 0 04 00 3. 20 0 3. 0 36 00 3. 52 0 3. 0 68 00

Derived Unit Hydrograph

700.0000 600.0000

Total Hydrograph

500.0000

400.0000

Surface Response

300.0000

Baseflow
200.0000

100.0000

0.0000 0.0000 0.5000 1.0000 1.5000 2.0000 2.5000 3.0000 3.5000 4.0000

Derived Unit Hydrograph

Rules of Thumb : the storm should be fairly uniform in nature and the excess precipitation should be equally as uniform throughout the basin. This may require the initial conditions throughout the basin to be spatially similar. Second, the storm should be relatively constant in time, meaning that there should be no breaks or periods of no precipitation. Finally, the storm should produce at least an inch of excess precipitation (the area under the hydrograph after correcting for baseflow).

Deriving a UHG from a Storm

sample watershed = 450 mi2
25000 0.8 0.7 20000 0.6

15000
Flow (cfs)

0.5

0.4 10000

0.3

0.2 5000 0.1

0
96 10 4 11 2 12 0 12 8 0 8 16 24 32 40 48 56 64 72 80 88

Time (hrs.)

Precipitation (inches)

Separation of Baseflow
...

generally accepted that the inflection point on the recession limb of a hydrograph is the result of a change in the controlling physical processes of the excess precipitation flowing to the basin outlet.
In

this example, baseflow is considered to be a straight line connecting that point at which the hydrograph begins to rise rapidly and the inflection point on the recession side of the hydrograph.
the

inflection point may be found by plotting the hydrograph in semi-log fashion with flow being plotted on the log scale and noting the time at which the recession side fits a straight line.

Semi-log Plot
100000 10000

Recession side of hydrograph becomes linear at approximately hour 64.

1000

Flow (cfs)
100

10

Time (hrs.)

99 10 4 10 9 11 4 11 9 12 4 12 9 13 4

29 34

39 44

49 54

59 64

69 74

79 84

89 94

Hydrograph & Baseflow

25000

20000

15000

Flow (cfs)
10000 5000

14

21

28

35

42

49

56

63

70

77

84

91

98

105

112

119

126

Time (hrs.)

133

Separate Baseflow
25000

20000

15000

Flow (cfs)
10000 5000 0

98 10 5

11 2

11 9

12 6

Time (hrs.)

13 3

14

21

28

35

42

49

56

63

70

77

84

91

Sample Calculations
In the present example (hourly time step), the flows are

summed and then multiplied by 3600 seconds to determine the volume of runoff in cubic feet. If desired, this value may then be converted to acre-feet by dividing by 43,560 square feet per acre. The depth of direct runoff in feet is found by dividing the total volume of excess precipitation (now in acre-feet) by the watershed area (450 mi2 converted to 288,000 acres). In this example, the volume of excess precipitation or direct runoff for storm #1 was determined to be 39,692 acre-feet. The depth of direct runoff is found to be 0.1378 feet after dividing by the watershed area of 288,000 acres. Finally, the depth of direct runoff in inches is 0.1378 x 12 = 1.65 inches.

Again - Summing Flows

Continuous process represented with discrete time steps

Obtain UHG Ordinates

The ordinates of the unit hydrograph are obtained by dividing each flow in the direct runoff hydrograph by the depth of excess precipitation. In this example, the units of the unit hydrograph would be cfs/inch (of excess precipitation).

Final UHG
25000 Storm #1 hydrograph 20000 Storm#1 direct runoff hydrograph

15000

Flow (cfs)

Storm # 1 unit hydrograph 10000

Storm #1 baseflow 5000

14

21

28

35

42

49

56

63

70

77

84

91

98

105

112

119

126

Time (hrs.)

133

Determine Duration of UHG

The duration of the derived unit hydrograph is found by

examining the precipitation for the event and determining that precipitation which is in excess. This is generally accomplished by plotting the precipitation in hyetograph form and drawing a horizontal line such that the precipitation above this line is equal to the depth of excess precipitation as previously determined. This horizontal line is generally referred to as the F-index and is based on the assumption of a constant or uniform infiltration rate. The uniform infiltration necessary to cause 1.65 inches of excess precipitation was determined to be approximately 0.2 inches per hour.

Estimating Excess Precip.

0.8
0.7

0.6

Precipitation (inches)

0.5

0.4

Uniform loss rate of 0.2 inches per hour.

0.3

0.2

0.1

0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Time (hrs.)

Excess Precipitation
1 0.9 0.8 0.7

Derived unit hydrograph is the result of approximately 6 hours of excess precipitation. Small amounts of excess precipitation at beginning and end may be omitted.

Excess Prec. (inches)

0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Time (hrs.)

Changing the Duration

Very often, it will be necessary to change the duration of the unit

hydrograph. If unit hydrographs are to be averaged, then they must be of the same duration. Also, convolution of the unit hydrograph with a precipitation event requires that the duration of the unit hydrograph be equal to the time step of the incremental precipitation. The most common method of altering the duration of a unit hydrograph is by the S-curve method. The S-curve method involves continually lagging a unit hydrograph by its duration and adding the ordinates. For the present example, the 6-hour unit hydrograph is continually lagged by 6 hours and the ordinates are added.

Develop S-Curve
60000.00 50000.00

40000.00
Flow (cfs)

30000.00

Continuous 6-hour bursts

20000.00

10000.00

0.00
102 108 114

Time (hrs.)

120

12

18

24

30

36

42

48

54

60

66

72

78

84

90

96

Convert to 1-Hour Duration

To arrive at a 1-hour unit hydrograph, the S-curve is lagged by

1 hour and the difference between the two lagged S-curves is found to be a 1 hour unit hydrograph. However, because the S-curve was formulated from unit hydrographs having a 6 hour duration of uniformly distributed precipitation, the hydrograph resulting from the subtracting the two S-curves will be the result of 1/6 of an inch of precipitation. Thus the ordinates of the newly created 1-hour unit hydrograph must be multiplied by 6 in order to be a true unit hydrograph. The 1-hour unit hydrograph should have a higher peak which occurs earlier than the 6-hour unit hydrograph.

Final 1-hour UHG

14000.00 60000.00 12000.00

50000.00 S-curves are lagged by 1 hour and the difference 40000.00 is found. 1-hour unit hydrograph resulting 30000.00 from lagging Scurves and multiplying the 20000.00 difference by 6.

Unit Hydrograph Flow (cfs/inch)

10000.00

8000.00

6000.00

4000.00 10000.00

2000.00

0.00 Time (hrs.)

0.00

Flow (cfs)

Average Several UHGs

It is recommend that several unit hydrographs be derived

and averaged. The unit hydrographs must be of the same duration in order to be properly averaged. It is often not sufficient to simply average the ordinates of the unit hydrographs in order to obtain the final unit hydrograph. A numerical average of several unit hydrographs which are different shapes may result in an unrepresentative unit hydrograph. It is often recommended to plot the unit hydrographs that are to be averaged. Then an average or representative unit hydrograph should be sketched or fitted to the plotted unit hydrographs. Finally, the average unit hydrograph must have a volume of 1 inch of runoff for the basin.

Synthetic UHGs
Snyder SCS Time-area

Snyder
Since peak flow and time of peak flow are two of the most

important parameters characterizing a unit hydrograph, the Snyder method employs factors defining these parameters, which are then used in the synthesis of the unit graph (Snyder, 1938). The parameters are Cp, the peak flow factor, and Ct, the lag factor. The basic assumption in this method is that basins which have similar physiographic characteristics are located in the same area will have similar values of Ct and Cp. Therefore, for ungaged basins, it is preferred that the basin be near or similar to gaged basins for which these coefficients can be determined.

Basic Relationships
t LAG Ct ( L Lca )0.3

t duration

t LAG

5.5

talt .lag t LAG 0.25(talt .duration tduration )

tbase 3

t LAG 8

q peak

640 AC p t LAG

Final Shape
The final shape of the Snyder unit hydrograph is controlled by the equations for width at 50% and 75% of the peak of the UHG:

SCS
SCS Dimensionless UHG Features
1

Flow ratios Cum. Mass

0.8

0.6
Q/Qpeak

0.4

0.2

0 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 T/Tpeak 3 3.5 4 4.5 5

Dimensionless Ratios
Time Ratios (t/tp) 0 .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6 .7 .8 .9 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2.0 2.2 2.4 2.6 2.8 3.0 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4.0 4.5 5.0 Discharge Ratios (q/qp) .000 .030 .100 .190 .310 .470 .660 .820 .930 .990 1.000 .990 .930 .860 .780 .680 .560 .460 .390 .330 .280 .207 .147 .107 .077 .055 .040 .029 .021 .015 .011 .005 .000 Mass Curve Ratios (Qa/Q) .000 .001 .006 .012 .035 .065 .107 .163 .228 .300 .375 .450 .522 .589 .650 .700 .751 .790 .822 .849 .871 .908 .934 .953 .967 .977 .984 .989 .993 .995 .997 .999 1.000

Triangular Representation
D
1.2

SCS Dimensionless UHG & Triangular Representation

Excess Precipitation Tlag

0.8

Flow ratios Cum. Mass

Q/Qpeak

Triangular Point of Inflection Tc

0.6

0.4

0.2

0 0.0

Tp

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

Tb

T/Tpeak

Triangular Representation
Tb 2.67 x Tp
D
1.2

SCS Dimensionless UHG & Triangular Representation

Excess Precipitation Tlag

Tr Tb - Tp 1.67 x Tp

0.8

Flow ratios Cum. Mass

Q/Qpeak

Triangular Point of Inflection Tc

0.6

Q=

qpT p 2

qpT r 2

qp 2

0.4

(T p +T r )
0.2 0 0.0

Tp

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

Tb

2Q qp = T p +T r

T/Tpeak

qp =

654.33 x 2 x A x Q T p +T r

The 645.33 is the conversion used for delivering 1-inch of runoff (the area under the unit hydrograph) from 1-square mile in 1-hour (3600 seconds).

qp =

484 A Q Tp

484 ?
qp = 484 A Q Tp

Comes from the initial assumption that 3/8 of the volume under the UHG is under the rising limb and the remaining 5/8 is under the recession limb.
General Description Urban areas; steep slopes Typical SCS Mixed urban/rural Rural, rolling hills Rural, slight slopes Rural, very flat Peaking Factor 575 484 400 300 200 100 Limb Ratio (Recession to Rising) 1.25 1.67 2.25 3.33 5.5 12.0

Duration & Timing?

Again from the triangle
T p= D +L 2

L = Lag time

L 0.6 * Tc
Tc D 1.7 T p

D + 0.6 T c = T p 2

For estimation purposes :

D 0.133 Tc

Time of Concentration
Regression Eqs. Segmental Approach

A Regression Equation
L0.8 (S 1) 0.7 Tlag 1900(% Slope) 0.5

where : Tlag = lag time in hours L = Length of the longest drainage path in feet S = (1000/CN) - 10 (CN=curve number) %Slope = The average watershed slope in %

Segmental Approach
More hydraulic in nature
The parameter being estimated is essentially the time of

concentration or longest travel time within the basin. In general, the longest travel time corresponds to the longest drainage path The flow path is broken into segments with the flow in each segment being represented by some type of flow regime. The most common flow representations are overland, sheet, rill and gully, and channel flow.

A Basic Approach V kS
K 0.25 0.5 0.7 0.9 1.0 1.5 2.0 Land Use / Flow Regime Forest with heavy ground litter, hay meadow (overland flow) Trash fallow or minimum tillage cultivation; contour or strip cropped; woodland (overland flow) Short grass pasture (overland flow) Cultivated straight row (overland flow) Nearly bare and untilled (overland flow); alluvial fans in western mountain regions Grassed waterway Paved area (sheet flow); small upland gullies

1 2

McCuen (1989) and SCS (1972) provide values of k for several flow situations (slope in %)

Sorell & Hamilton, 1991 Flow Type Small Tributary - Permanent or intermittent streams which appear as solid or dashed blue lines on USGS topographic maps. Waterway - Any overland flow route which is a well defined swale by elevation contours, but is not a stream section as defined above. Sheet Flow - Any other overland flow path which does not conform to the definition of a waterway.

K 2.1

1.2

0.48

Triangular Shape
In general, it can be said that the triangular version will not

cause or introduce noticeable differences in the simulation of a storm event, particularly when one is concerned with the peak flow. For long term simulations, the triangular unit hydrograph does have a potential impact, due to the shape of the recession limb. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (HEC 1990) fits a Clark unit hydrograph to match the peak flows estimated by the Snyder unit hydrograph procedure. It is also possible to fit a synthetic or mathematical function to the peak flow and timing parameters of the desired unit hydrograph. Aron and White (1982) fitted a gamma probability distribution using peak flow and time to peak data.

Fitting a Gamma Distribution

t a e t b f (t; a, b) a1 b (a 1)
500.0000 450.0000 400.0000 350.0000 300.0000 250.0000 200.0000 150.0000 100.0000 50.0000 0.0000 0.0000

1.0000

2.0000

3.0000

4.0000

5.0000

6.0000

Time-Area

Time-Area

100% Q % Area Time of conc.

Time

Time

Time-Area

Hypothetical Example
A 190 mi2 watershed is divided into 8 isochrones of travel time.
The linear reservoir routing coefficient, R, estimated as 5.5

hours. A time interval of 2.0 hours will be used for the computations.

Rule of Thumb
R - The linear reservoir routing coefficient can be estimated as approximately 0.75 times the time of concentration.

Basin Breakdown
Map Area # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 TOTAL Bounding Isochrones 0-1 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 5-6 6-7 7-8 Area (mi2) 5 9 23 19 27 26 39 40 190 Cumulative Area (mi2) 5 14 37 58 85 111 150 190 190 Cumulative Time (hrs) 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 8.0

Incremental Area
40 35

Incremental Area (sqaure miles)

30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Time Increment (hrs)

Cumulative Time-Area Curve

9 8

Cumulative Area (sqaure miles)

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 Time (hrs) 120 140 160 180 200

Trouble Getting a Time-Area Curve?

TAi 1.414Ti 1.5 1 TAi 1.414(1 Ti )1.5 for (0 Ti 0.5) for (0.5 Ti 1.0)

Synthetic time-area curve The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (HEC 1990)

Instantaneous UHG
IUH i cI i (1 c) IUH ( i 1)

2t 2 R t

t = the time step used n the calculation of the translation unit hydrograph The final unit hydrograph may be found by averaging 2 instantaneous unit hydrographs that are a t time step apart.

Computations
Time (hrs) (1) 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 Inc. Area (mi2) (2) 0 14 44 53 79 0 Inc. Translated Flow (cfs) (3) 0 4,515 14,190 17,093 25,478 0 Inst. UHG (4) 0 1391 5333 8955 14043 9717 6724 4653 3220 2228 1542 1067 738 510 352 242 168 116 81 55 39 26 19 13 IUHG Lagged 2 hours (5) 0 1,391 5,333 8,955 14,043 9,717 6,724 4,653 3,220 2,228 1,542 1,067 738 510 352 242 168 116 81 55 39 26 19 13 2-hr UHG (cfs) (6) 0 700 3,360 7,150 11,500 11,880 8,220 5,690 3,940 2,720 1,890 1,300 900 630 430 300 200 140 100 70 50 30 20 20

Incremental Areas
90 80

Area Increments (square miles)

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 Time Increments (2 hrs)

Incremental Flows
30000

25000

Translated Unit Hydrograph

20000

15000

10000

5000

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Time Increments (2 hrs)

Instantaneous UHG
16000 14000 12000

Flow (cfs/inch)

10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 0 10 20 30 Time (hrs) 40 50 60

Lag & Average

16000 14000 12000

Flow (cfs/inch)

10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 0 10 20 30 Time (hrs) 40 50 60

Convolution

Putting It All Together

The Basic Process.

Necessary for a single basin

Excess Precip. Model

Excess Precip.

Excess Precip.

Basin Routing UHG Methods

Runoff Hydrograph

Runoff Hydrograph

Stream and/or Reservoir Routing

Downstream Hydrograph

Convolution
CN = 68 Time Ppt 0 0 1 0.7 2 1.2 3 0.6 4 1.5 5 6.3 6 4 7 0 8 1.6 9 0.4 10 0.2 11 0.6 12 0.1 13 0 14 0 15 0 16 0 17 0 18 0 19 0 20 0 21 0 22 0 23 0 24 0 25 0 26 0 27 0 28 0 29 0 30 0 31 0 32 0 33 0 S= 4.706 IA = 0.9412 Cum Ppt. cum. RO Inc. ROUHG(@360) RO1(UHG) RO2(UHG) RO3(UHG) RO4(UHG) 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.7 0.01 0.01 750.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.9 0.16 0.15 1500.00 0.00 9.77 0.00 0.00 2.5 0.39 0.23 2250.00 0.00 19.54 111.95 0.00 4 1.20 0.82 2850.00 0.00 29.31 223.90 169.19 10.3 6.23 5.02 3625.00 0.00 37.13 335.85 338.37 14.3 9.88 3.65 3400.00 0.00 47.23 425.41 507.56 14.3 9.88 0.00 3150.00 0.00 44.30 541.09 642.91 15.9 11.38 1.50 2725.00 0.00 41.04 507.50 817.74 16.3 11.76 0.38 2500.00 0.00 35.50 470.19 766.98 16.5 11.95 0.19 2250.00 0.00 32.57 406.75 710.59 17.1 12.51 0.57 1925.00 0.00 29.31 373.16 614.71 17.2 12.61 0.09 1675.00 0.00 25.08 335.85 563.96 17.2 12.61 0.00 1450.00 0.00 21.82 287.34 507.56 17.2 12.61 0.00 1225.00 0.00 18.89 250.02 434.25 17.2 12.61 0.00 1000.00 0.00 15.96 216.43 377.85 17.2 12.61 0.00 775.00 0.00 13.03 182.85 327.10 17.2 12.61 0.00 550.00 0.00 10.10 149.27 276.34 17.2 12.61 0.00 325.00 0.00 7.17 115.68 225.58 17.2 12.61 0.00 100.00 0.00 4.23 82.10 174.83 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.30 48.51 124.07 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 14.93 73.31 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 22.56 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 17.2 12.61 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Individual Responses
Individual Responses
20000.00

15000.00

Flow (cfs)

10000.00

5000.00

0.00 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

-5000.00 Time (hrs)

Overall Response
Overall Response
40000.00 35000.00 30000.00 25000.00

Flow (cfs)

20000.00 15000.00 10000.00 5000.00 0.00 0 -5000.00 Time (hrs) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

UHG Application

UHGs in the NWSRFS a few issues

The SAC-SMA UHG

The SAC-SMA model computes the following components: Surface runoff which occurs when the storage capacity of the upper zone free water is exceeded. Impervious runoff from impermeable surfaces (if the percent impervious is set to a value greater than zero. Direct runoff from additional impervious surfaces (if applicable). Interflow and baseflow contributions.

More on SAC-SMA UHG

When developing a

unit hydrograph for the SAC-SMA model, the user should attempt to separate out both baseflow and interflow.

SAC-SMA more
The very nature of the

unit hydrograph is that is time distributes the runoff or excess precipitation. Therefore, it accounts for lagging or delays. The SAC-SMA model also accounts for delays in the interflow and baseflow components; therefore, they should not be accounted for in the unit hydrograph that is to be used with the SAC-SMA.

Issues w/ UHG in Forecasting

Storm Size
Moving Storms