HIDROLOGI

FARID AHMAD S 1021052

7 . Runoff
7.1 Introduction Runoff or streamflow comprises the gravity movement of water un channels which may vary in size from the one containing the smallest ill defined trickle to the ones containing the largest rivers such as the Amazon, the Congo, and the Mississippi. As well as Streamflow, runoffmay be variously referred to as stream or river discharge, or catchmen yield, and is normally e pressed as volume per unit of time. !he cumec, one cubic metre per second, and cumecs per s"uare kilometer are commonly used units. Runoff may also be e pressed as a depth e"uivalent over a catchment, i.e millimeters per day or month or year. !his is a particularly useful unit for comparing precipitation and runoff rates and total since precipitation is almost invariably e pressed in this way. Alternative runoff e pressions still found in the literature include millions of gallons per day #m.g.d$ and, particularly in American irrigation literature , acre%feet, i.e the volume of water that would be cover one acre to a depth of one foot. At general level the relationship between streamflow and precipitation can be e pressed in terms of the continous circulation of water through the hydrological cycle. More specifically, we can recognize that in natural conditions each river and stream receive water only from its own drainage basin or catchment area. &ach catchment can, therefore, be regarded as a system receiving inputs of precipitation and transforming this system, input must be e"ual by output. 'n all but the driest areas output from the catchment system is continous but the inputs of precipitation are dicrete and often widely separated in time. 7.2 Quickflow nd Slowflow !he immediacy of streamflow response seems to indicate that some part of the initial precipitation takes a rrapid route to the stream channel ( the continuity of flow through often prolonged dry periods seems e"ually clearly to indicate that some part of the initial precipitation takes a much slow route, which in the interests of consistency should be called slowflow but which is usually referred to as baseflow. !hese two fundamental components of flow are apparent in rivers of all sizes. )owever, in large river system lag effects, both within an outside channels, and the multiplicity of flow contributions to the main channels of numerous tributary streams make it more difficult to interpret hydrograph response to precipitations. 'n such

situationsthe response of catchments to precipitation that appears is often very rapid but is rarely the same, i.e the proportion of precipitation that appears "uickly as streamflow under the storm hydrograph differs from storm to storm. *oodruff and )ewlett #+,-.$ mapped the percentage the value of the eastern /SA about +. per cent of total precipitation appears "uickly under the storm hydrograph. 't is estimated that globally some 01 per cent of total precipitation falling in the land areas reaches the ocean as runoff so that it *oodruff and )ewlett2s figures are applied generally it can be seen that runoff comprises "uickflow, representing +. per cent of precipitation, and slowflow, representing 31 per cent of precipitation.

7.! Sourc" nd #o$%on"nt& of runoff !raditionally the temporally and spatially variable response of streamflow to precipitation has been e plain in terms of divergent and contrasting flowpaths of precipitations towards the stream channels. !hese terms are used widely and relatively anambigously in the literature. 4ersistent misuse of other terms such as surface runoff and direct runoff has result in unnecessary confusion and ambiguity. 5rom this it will be seen that surface runoff is that part of total runoff that reaches the drainage basin outlet via overland flow and the stream channels, although it may in some circumstances also include throughflow that has discharge in ground surface at some distance from the stream channel. Subsurface is the sum of throughflow and groundwater flow and is normally e"ual to the total flow of water arriving at the stream as saturated flow into the stream bed itself and as perlocation from seepage faces on the stream bank. 6uickflow, or direct runoff, is the sum of channel precipitation, surface runoff and rapid throughflow, and will represent the ma7or runoff contribution duting storm periods and most floods. 't will be observed that "uickflow and surface runoff as defined above are not synonymous. 7.!.1 #' nn"l (r"ci%it tion 8ot all of these source of runoff are e"ual importance. 5or e ample, the contribution of direct precipitation on to the water surface is normally small simply because the perennial channel system occupies only a small percentage of catchment area , about + per cent in the

eastern /SA. )owever this will increase significantly during a prolonged storm and Rawitz #+,-.$ estimated that on occasions channel precipitation accounted for as much as 9+ per cent of total runoff in a small 4ennsylvania catchment. *here catchment contain a large area of lakes or swamps channel precipitation may be persistently important. 7.!.2 O)"l nd flow :verland flow comprises the water that, failing to infiltrate the surface, travels over the ground surface towards a stream channel either "uasi%laminer sheet flow or, more usually, as flow anastomosing in small trickles and minor rivulets. !he main cause of the overland flow is the unability of water to infiltrate the surface, and in view of the high value of infiltration characterisitic of most vegetation%covered surface it is not surprising that overland flow is rarely observed phenomenon. Conditions in which it assumes considerable importance include the saturation of the ground surface, the hydrophobic nature of some very dry and sodic soils, the deleterious effects of many agricultural practices on infiltration capacity and freezing of the ground surface. 7.!.! *'rou+'flow *ater that infiltrates the soil surface and the moves laterally through the upper soil horizons towards the stream channel, either as unsaturated flow or, more usually, as throughflow. Alternative terms found in the literature include interflow, subsurface stormflow #)ursh, +,09$, storm seepage #;arnes, +,0,$ and secondary baseflow #;arnes, +,0<$.the general condition favouring the generation of throughflow is one in which lateral conductivity in the surface horizons of the soil is substantially greater than the overall vertical hydraulic conductivity to the soil profile. !hen during prolonged or heavy rainfall water will enter the upper part of the profile more rapidly than it can pass vertically through the lower part, thus forming a perched saturated from which water will escape laterally, i.e in the direction of the greater hydraulic conductivity. & cept where conditions have been artificially disturbed , the situation described above is the one most commonly found. &ven in deep relatively layers than deeper down in the profile, thereby encouraging the generation of through =flow. )owever, still more favourable conditions e ist where a thin permeable soil overlies impermeable bedrock, with a markedly stratified soil profile, or where an iron%pan occurs a short distance below the surface. !here may be several level s of throughflow below the surface corresponding to te tural changes between horizons

and and to the 7unction between weathered mantle and bedrock. 'n addition, there is evidence that water may travel downslope through old root holes and animal burrows and other subsurface pipes and that in some circumstances a high degree of soil biological activity may play a role as important in runoff generation #;onell, +,<1$ as in drainage basin erosion #>ungerius, +,<?$. !he role of throughflow in total ruoff will be discussed in more detail in sugbse"uent sections of this chapter, although it is interesting to note at this stage that e perimental evidence has long indicated that it may account for up <? per cent of total runoff #)ertzler, +,0,$. 7.!., Groundw t"r flow Away from the relatively steeply sloping terrain of the headwaters, where subsurface runoff is dominated by throughflow, most of the rainfall that infiltrates that catchment surface will perlocate through to the soil layer to underlying groundwater and will eventually reach the main stream channels as groundwater flow through the zone of saturation. Since water can move only very slowly through the ground, the outflow of groundwater into the stream channels may lag behind the occurrence of precipitation by several days, week or even years. @roundwater flow also tends to be very regular, representing as it does the outflow from the slowly changing reservoir of moisture in the soil and rock layers. 't must not inferred from this that groundwater may not show a rapid response to precipitation. 'ndeed, the Apiston displacement2 mechanism fre"uently results in rapid response of groundwater flow to precipitation during individual storm periods, and especially on a seasonal basis.

7., -)"nt./ &"d ) ri tion& Some of the flow paths described above are "uicker thean others, e.g. direct precipitation and overland flow are likely to deliver water to the stream channels more rapidly than is deep undergroundwater flow. /nderstandably, therefore, early attempts to e plain the variation of streamflow with time, especially through a precipitation event, concentrated almost e clusively on the overland flowpath.

7.,.1 *'" Horton '0%ot'"&i& !his was the view e pressed clearly by R.&.)orton #+,00$ who proposed "uite simply that the soil surface partitions falling rain so that one part goes rapidly as overland flow to the stream channels and the other part goes initially into the soil and thence either through gradual groundwater flow to the stream channels or through evaporation to the atmosphere. !he partitioning device is the infiltration capacity of the soil surface which )orton #+,00$ defined as B the ma imum rate at which rain can be absorbed by a given soil when in given conditionC. )orton suggested that infiltration capacity #f$ would pass through a fairly definite cycle for each storm period. Starting with a ma imum value at the onset rain, f would decrease, rapidly at first, as a result of compaction of the soil surface by falling raindrops, colloidal swelling of the soil, which would close sun%cracks and other interstice, and the clogging of interstice by the inwashing of fine particles. After the initial rapid decline infiltration capacity would become stable or decline only very slowly for the remainder of the storm and would begin to recover immediately after the end of the storm. )e maintained that this cycle of infiltration capacity resulted from the operation of processes..2confined to a thin layer at the soil surface2. 8evertheless, for some soils the )orton concept remains broadly applicable. 5or e ample, in small Awater harvesting2 plots in the 8egev Desert, 'srael, where the sodic soils crust easily during rainfall, often only the first few millimeters of rainfall are able to infiltrate through cracks, etc. before the crust begins to shed water with about the same efficiency as an asphalt road surface. #van der Molen , +,<0$. )orton2s e planation of river response to precipitation was bassed on three assumptions, the first which was the infiltration capacity can be measured easily and that, knowing infiltration capacity and rainfall intensity. Second, it was assumed that the soil surface can act as a plane of hydrological separation whereas there is normally at the soil surface of transition between the soil mass and the overlying atmosphere such that porosity and hydraulic conductivity increase in a direction away from the soil mass. Accordingly, only in cases of severe compaction or crusting will the soil surface appro imate to the )ortonian concept of a plane of separation. !hird it was assumed that a sheet of water could accumulated on and flow over this hypothetical plane surface.

7.,.2 *'" H"l"tt '0%ot'"&i& An alternative hypothesis emerged in the +,9.s as a result of doubts raised by /S 5orest during intense raimstorm that resulted in a rapid river response and that were subse"uently substained by clear evidence that rainfall intensity has no appreciable effect on storm flows #)ewlett , +,--, +,<1$ then as a results of the combined processes of infiltration and throughflow through the soil profile, first the shallow water table areas immediately ad7acent to the stream channels and subse"uently the lower valley slopes become saturated as the water table rises to the ground surface. 'n these surface%saturated areas infiltration capacity is zero so that all precipitation falling on them at whatever intensity, is e cess precipitation #4e$ or overland flow, which we can term saturated overland flow #6o#s$$, in contrast to Hortonian overland flow #6o$ as previously defined. 't is only the saturated area of the catchment that can act as source of "uickflow ( all other areas of the catchment absorb the rain that falls and either store it or transfer it beneaththe ground surface. 8ote also that the source area for "uickflow is of variable size, growing as rainfall proceeds. According to )ewlett and )ibbert #+,9-$, E't would not be impossible to treat overland flow as an e ceptionally rapid e tension of the channel system into areas where the soil cannot transmit water as subsurface flow. !his seems more appropriate than treating all direct runoff as overland flow E. Day#+,-<$ cautioned, however, on the basis of field observations in a small rural catchment near Armidale, 8S*, that notions of a simple e panding and contracting system needB2review and refinement2. 't is disappointing that a combinations of semantic confusion over the inchangeable terms Echannel e pansionC and Esaturated overland flowC, personal bias in literature citation and 7ust plain ignorance on the patt of many hydrologist has obscured the fact that the essential concept of variable source areas was first e pounded in a few brief paragraphs by )ewlett #+,9+$ and was subse"uently modified only marginally, if it all, by hydrologists such as R.4. ;etson and !. Dunne to whom credit for these ideas is often wrongly ascribed #cf. Anderson and ;urt , +,-< ( 5reeze, +,<.$. )ewlett hypothesis was "ualitatively supported by separate investigations of subsurface water movement through valley slope profiles. 5ield e periments in 'owa, /SA, by Firkham #+,1-$, for e ample , had indicates that during intense precipitation water infiltrated on the slopes and then moved horizontally through the middle slope material and vertically upwards

near the base of slopes as a result of the pattern of pre%water pressure which developed during the storm. !his basic pattern was confirmed by !oth #+,93$ and generalized in his mid%line model. A similar pattern was simulated by Flute et al.#+,9?$ and was further substantiated by additional field evidence at a catchment scale, such as that presented by 5reeze #+,9-$. 'n other words, it seems clear that the increase of pressure potential with depth in the lower slopes represents a condition that facilitates rapid saturation of the surface layers when even modest "uantities of water are added to the soil profile by infiltration or shallow throughflow. 'nterestingly, this possibility had been anticipated two decades earlier by Gaidhianathan and Singh #+,13$ who e plained the surprisingly large response to small inputs of rainfall of the free water level within the Ecapillary fringeC, where there is marked gradient of pressure potential towards the surface, in terms of the falttening of the concave menisci at the soil surface and the conse"uent increase of the pressure potential. Much later the physical basis of the capillary fringe effect was described in detail by @illham #+,<1$.